


Pharmakon

by WhiskeySalad



Series: Monsters Make Good Lovers [2]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Anal Sex, Daniel doesn't know how castles work, Daniel has an Emotional Moment!! lol you'll see, Existential Crises, Frottage, Horny Fluff, I don't know how castles work, Light Bondage, Louis is not consort-Louis, M/M, Perv Mignon, Polyamory, Priapus, Unpleasant Conversations, Vampire Science, a heedless sexy journey, consensual but rough dom/sub play, immortal idiots, there are still aspects of this that are not okay, they're doing their best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-10-18 12:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17581037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskeySalad/pseuds/WhiskeySalad
Summary: Pre- Blood Communion. Why Daniel wasn't at the Chateau or mentioned in the book, and why Louis carries around a copy of War and Peace wherever he goes.Eventually, Armand/Daniel/Louis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is maybe a series now! Thanks so much for the kudos and comments on the last thing—the encouragement was much appreciated. xx
> 
> So. I did read the last three books but I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a major plot-point that renders this fic even more implausible than it already is, haha. Just to warn you. 
> 
> Maybe the most important thing to mention is, in this universe, Louis is not Lestat's consort/spouse. They're certainly in a relationship of some kind. Who knows what they're doing. Do they know what they're doing? No.

In this hellscape of shining floors and wall-to-wall velvet and tall, glamorous strangers, Daniel was on his own, a conspicuous outsider. Armand had declined to join him on his nauseating expedition to the Chateau de Lioncourt, preferring to wait for him in Paris with their two young friends. With any luck, Daniel would be joining them the evening after next. But first ...

To the library! To each and every one of the libraries, if that's what it took. 

He spoke too soon, perhaps. Because after spending an entire hour wandering from one suffocating cherry-paneled room to the next, Louis wasn't in any of them. And no one he ran into along the way had seen him. Vampires milling about in every shade and cut of, yes, *velvet* ever made; vampires looking down at their phones; vampires reclining on antique furniture, wearing expressions ranging from cold distaste to boredom. You *are* boring, Daniel wanted to say. You're supposed to be out in the world, not holed up in a castle simmering over old grudges and spending hours in tedious non-arguments with non-enemies you can't even bring yourself to pretend you secretly want to fuck. 

The fact that no one had seen Louis encouraged Daniel somewhat, because it meant that when he did find him, they might be afforded some privacy. There were some private things he would like to say to Louis, and some private things he would perhaps like to do, without the prince or one of his spies discovering them. Because for all Lestat's talk of free-love and his own well-documented flings and obsessions, he was a hypocrite when it came to his fledgling and most prized possession. Louis was his and his alone. An unspoken law, well-understood by all in the Court.

Whatever that was worth. 

Daniel wasn't part of their little kingdom; he belonged to a different coven, a different family, one that had included Louis until only recently. Long story short, barring some exciting new catastrophe—cyborgs, perhaps, or some kind of Jurassic Park scenario—he'd fucking see Louis if he wanted to. 

Although he truly hoped he wouldn't have to lay eyes on every other vampire in the world before he did. (He hoped, actually, that he wouldn't run into Marius just yet, for example.)

Finally, exhausted and sick of hearing his footsteps ringing through the endless maze of ornate, highly-reflective rooms without seeing a single familiar face, feeling a little like “The Dude” and wondering if anyone would notice or care if he started stealing shit, Daniel made his way to the roof. He began moving aimlessly down the rampart, or whatever it was called, under the open sky at last, wishing he had the power to zoom to Paris for a quick check-in with his love, when he heard something. A very small sound that wavered and broke before he could determine what it was.

Hopping effortlessly onto the precarious edge of the battlement, skirting the peak of a turret, he heard it again—a voice, maybe, coming from somewhere at the opposite end of the rooftop. He followed it, glad for the distraction, managing to pinpoint it to a tower bordering the black stretches of forest leading the rocky wilderness beyond. Daniel left the dim glow of the village behind as he moved further into the shadow of the tower, further into the cool, secretive atmosphere of the mountains. 

He slipped inside the entryway, stepping onto a narrow landing, when a strangled little cry rang out from somewhere just above him. Instinctively, he pressed himself tightly to the stones, in the shadows, and peered up through the darkness.

Daniel seemed to notice several things at once. Clothing scattered along the wide, uneven steps. Lestat seated with his back to the wall, fully dressed, or nearly, and Louis on top of him, naked from the waist down, his shirt of cream-colored silk shredded down the front and slumping away from his shoulder; and his arms—caught in the sleeves of his half-discarded suit jacket—trapped behind him. Lestat's hands on him. Golden skin against luminous white. And, well—

The smell. A powerful combination of blood and sex that nearly sent Daniel into a swoon. Even without the power of sight, Daniel would have known what was happening on that staircase. Any vampire would. Fuck, any *person* would know.

They were, indeed, fucking. Actually fucking, in the human sense of the word. Clearly their beloved prince was tapping the lab's drug supply for recreational purposes—no surprise there. This kind of thing had happened throughout human history. And now immortals had their own coveted substance, possibly nearly as appealing, to some, as the sworn-off but ever-tempting Blood of the Innocent. Maybe Lestat had his very own stockpile locked away in his rooms; “it was good to be the prince”; etc.

Lestat's hair was tied back, so it was easy to see the look on his face. Full of adoration as it was, it wasn't a tender expression. It wasn't tender, what he was doing to Louis. He was jerking Louis down to meet him with one hand on his captured wrists and the other locked like a vice on the lean, moon-colored hip, and the sounds Daniel had heard, he should have recognized, because they were coming from Louis. 

At one time, Daniel had managed to convince himself—arrogantly so—that he'd come to know that voice more intimately than anyone. But these were different from the noises Daniel had coaxed from his lips when the two of them shared a bed, both before Daniel joined the league of immortal assholes and after. These sounds—these choked little cries—escaped through gritted teeth, forced from Louis' throat with the violence of what was being done to him. 

When Daniel had fucked Louis this way, he'd only ever had mortal strength, and the little extra Armand's blood had given him. Lestat was a different matter. And every ounce of his considerable power—including the strength that didn't look like strength: his devotion as well as his restraint—was being channeled into the spare, shivering body on his lap. 

Lestat brought his hand up, tracing the edge of Louis' torn shirt, and pressed his thumb against his nipple, lightly at first, then scraping it with his nail. Louis pushed his narrow chest forward slightly and Lestat grinned, slumping back against the wall to watch him. 

Louis. His jaw was clenched, his brows were knotted, his hair was sticking to his face. His abandonment, his helpless trembling—so lovely, as always, to see. But it was something else that caught Daniel's eye.

It was the first time that Daniel felt emotional about an erection.* His own or anyone else's. Honestly. If he wasn't afraid his tears would give him away, he might have cried.

It was too beautiful. Louis' cock—hard, pink, and glossy as Daniel had never seen it, as he had envisioned only in his wildest dreams—riding against his torturer's abdomen where Lestat's shirt was pushed up.

Daniel wanted to look away, to leave, but he remained frozen in place, in the shadows on the little landing. The sight wasn't something he seemed capable of turning away from. Daniel was simply, helplessly transfixed. Not only by Louis, but by Lestat as well. The two of them, fused carnally like this. And there was a brutal, red-tinged intensity, a charge in the air between them, that Daniel felt sparking under his own skin. 

But it was a completely different thing, in the end, that made Daniel hesitate to leave immediately as he should have. A little seed of a thought, some small but compelling idea that was developing in the back of his mind. A realization about Louis—Louis, who during his darkest, loneliest years had sought out mortal men, Daniel among them, to hold him down and throw their bodies into him until his mind went blank and he was a shuddering, powerless thing in their arms. Like the kill, like dying—like a different kind of dying. But watching Louis now—maybe Daniel had been wrong in assuming he wanted these things, these particular bodies, these particular acts, only when he craved oblivion. Hadn't Louis touched him back? Hadn't Louis given him things and begged him for things that had nothing to do with erasure?

Lestat had sat back up, his hands cupping the cheeks of Louis' ass, squeezing as he rolled up into him; and Louis' eyes were half-closed, his head lolling back, when Lestat brought up one hand to clamp tightly around his throat, forcing Louis to look at him. Lestat smiled, and said something that looked and sounded menacing, his thumb digging into the flesh under his chin. And Daniel could see a softening in the line of Louis' shoulders, and remembered how, when he himself would hold Louis hard by the roots of his hair, Louis would shake and nuzzle into his hand in pleasure; he remembered how his breathing would slow and his entire body would seem to radiate a sense of peace and contentment at being handled like this: roughly, cruelly, without mercy. Now, Louis responded to the hand around his neck, to the hold on his caught wrists, by sighing sweetly and grinding himself against Lestat in a way that made the blood rise to Daniel's face.

And all the while Daniel was thinking, abstractly, that it wasn't just the roughness that Louis responded to. It wasn't only that. 

But Lestat was pulling Louis off of his lap and onto the wide, flat stones of the step, flipping him onto his stomach. He was on him in an instant, ripping the shirt from Louis' body in a small explosion of fabric, then knotting the remnants of the ruined jacket more securely around his arms.

Sitting back, his eyes on Louis and his face blank with a strange, detached focus, Lestat began shedding his clothes and letting them drop to the steps below. It had been Daniel's personal theory, for years, that some of Lestat's behavior as a so-called “brat” was a result of his inability to cope with his own feelings of inadequacy *down there*—but, seeing him clearly now, this obviously wasn't the case. Of course Lestat would have to have a big dick, Daniel thought bitterly. Fucking “Priapus.” Fuck you.

And he *was* bitter. Not because he disliked Lestat. Actually, he had to admit, whenever he was around the guy he found it nearly impossible not to like him, against his better judgment. No, the bile was rising in his throat now because in another moment or two that sadistic, self-obsessed/control-freak/Bon Jovi-wannabe bastard would doubtlessly be buried to the hilt inside Louis once again, when he'd already had Louis in so many other ways. When he already owned a large portion of Louis' heart—enough to convince Louis to forgive him everything and join him here. And now, because he was Prince, he could harness all the powers of vampire-science to fuck him in this way, as well. 

Lestat used Louis' bound arms for leverage as he lined himself up against his entrance, Louis' knee, hanging over the edge of the step, drawing up toward his belly in an unmistakable gesture of encouragement. Lestat laughed a little, raking a possessive hand up Louis' hip, and Louis practically melted beneath him, his neck lengthening languidly against the cool stones. He tilted his head so that his wild, inky-black hair fell back from his face, his eyes—large and wonderfully green—gazing back at his maker with a look of pure trust and longing.

Painful to recognize that look, and to see it directed at someone else. At the same time, Daniel was lost in imagining how it would appear from above, that white throat bared to Lestat so invitingly. He could imagine shifting his eyes from this lovely sight, as Lestat was doing, down the curve of his spine, to the place where his body waited to join with Louis'. Louis would be a shiny, lurid pink, still quivering, the muscle gripping itself spasmodically—despite the sweet, tingling languor invading Louis' limbs—remembering the shape of Lestat's cock, the drag and throb of him against those sensitive places. Lestat seemed rather taken with the image himself, the smile wiped from his face, hesitating just a moment, as if deep in contemplation. 

Out of nowhere, a wave of scent—sharp and tangy and absolutely tantalizing—hit Daniel down in the shadows where he lurked, unable to go and unwilling to stay. Daniel could practically hear his pupils dilate. The source of the smell became clear as Lestat opened his lips to drizzle a mouthful of thick, glistening blood over Louis' opening and his own cock before tightening his grip on Louis' wrists and pulling him slowly backward. Onto him. Lestat groaned, his nails piercing the heavy fabric encasing Louis' arms, tearing into his skin. As for Louis, he didn't even try to bite back his sob of relief as Lestat buried himself inside him.

Lestat had lifted Louis' chest off the step when he'd wrenched him back. He held him there, by his arms, the muscles of Louis' shoulders straining beautifully, the prince-of-them-all obviously appreciating the shape his most cherished conquest made, contorted like this, beneath him. Louis raised his head slowly, dazedly—but Lestat pushed him down flush against the stone, pinning him there, looming over him to plant one firm hand on the side of Louis' skull. Hard enough to crack bone, had Louis been mortal. A brutal, ugly thing. But Louis only sighed, went pink and bit his lip, as if Lestat was showering him with the tenderest touches. 

And it was Lestat's *blood*, too, wasn't it? Working in him. 

A dark line of it was trickling down Louis' thighs and over the steps, making its way slowly down to Daniel, and he could hardly stand it. The smell. The sight of it flowing, advancing. But he tore his gaze away from this most prized and potent substance, taking deep breaths, steadying himself against the wall, his eyes refocusing instantly, as if magnetized, on the scene above.

Lestat was leaning over Louis' ear, whispering to him as he fucked him. Jerking at Louis' arms to punctuate his words. Lowering his head to leave a hard, blunt bite on Louis' shoulder. Making Louis respond to him—which he did, in little gasps, through his open mouth. In another lifetime, Daniel had prided himself on how expertly he could make Louis shake like that, grip his cock all the harder in appreciation, as he was surely gripping Lestat at that moment.

His jealousy flared violently at the thought. It distracted him. At any rate, it took him some moments to realize that Lestat had noticed him. 

And if he couldn't bring himself to move before, now he was absolutely locked in place. 

Those iridescent eyes were laughing as they gazed down at him. No anger there at being “caught.” On the contrary, Lestat seemed pleased. Smug.

Lestat raised a brow, almost inquisitively, turning his head briefly to glance at the spectacle of Louis whimpering and crushed into the step as if imagining how it must appear to Daniel. How they must appear together. And though he'd slowed, he never once stopped moving—only shifted his hands: one now sliding to press against Louis' neck while the other gripped his sweat-slickened flank. Louis' body rocked with the force of Lestat's thrusts, his eyes serenely, dreamily closed.

Lestat's amused gaze fell on Daniel again. Daniel had no idea what look was on his face, though he felt himself go red with shame. The slight smirk Lestat was already wearing broadened into a mocking grin. And there was pride in Lestat's smile too. Pride at Louis, no doubt, and the fact that he was allowed to fuck him like this in the tower of his own castle, pride that someone was here to witness it, which—shameless exhibitionist that he was—he'd probably been banking on. 

Meanwhile, Lestat's hold had relaxed on Louis' neck. Louis pressed his forehead into the stone and moaned loudly enough for Daniel to hear, clearly, Lestat's name. Followed by a quiet plea. In that instant, Lestat seemed to forget Daniel entirely. 

Daniel—released from that sparkling, malicious gaze—turned and slunk quickly and soundlessly away. 

*  
*  
*

*This is my favorite line of anything I've written so far in the new year.


	2. Chapter 2

The southern wing of the castle, the only section to remain neglected in renovations, was practically deserted when Daniel went there to look for Louis the next night, on instinct. He found him sitting in the library, a book in his lap, his dark head tilted to look out the open window at his side. A storm had rolled in at dusk. The branches of the enormous oak just beyond the window tossed in the wind, every isolated leaf seeming to shiver and pulse as one. Shiny undersides flashing. A beautiful sight, a beautiful sound. The first drops of rain had begun striking the sill and were sliding down the wall to the floorboards.

Maybe it was the storm, maybe it was his absorption in his own thoughts, but Louis hadn't heard Daniel coming. His face blanched immediately when he saw who stood in the doorway. Without a word, he put his book aside and rose to his feet—but he didn't come closer to Daniel, as Daniel had expected; only stood there, his hands meeting nervously in front of him.

Daniel had taken a step forward when Louis lowered his eyes and spoke. “I was coming to see you,” he said, his long fingers twitching. “Now that I know you're here. You should have told me.”

“And yet,” Daniel said wryly, looking around, “here we are. Miles away from the guest rooms. Not that I'm complaining.” He preferred it here. A dark, abandoned place smelling of rain and books and dust.

Louis glanced up at him for a moment. God—his eyes, and the flush suddenly lighting up his narrow face. 

Lestat had told him, then. 

Perhaps catching the edge of Daniel's thoughts, Louis turned quickly away, folding his arms, his face going carefully blank. The flush had drained away almost as quickly as it had appeared, but his discomfort was palpable. 

Daniel cleared his throat. “I didn't mean to,” he said stupidly, guiltily, wishing he could say he hadn't seen much, or that he'd put it out of his mind, neither of which was remotely true. Louis didn't respond. “I'm sorry,” Daniel said, daring to take a few steps in Louis' direction. “But why are you—?”

Louis' mouth thinned, and his shoulders pushed subtly down and back, and then he raised his eyes to meet Daniel's. His gaze—hard and challenging—stopped Daniel in his tracks. A look that said: *No. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances should you continue talking.* 

“I only mean—” Daniel continued, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, “that—you love him.” Louis flinched at these words, and Daniel might have, as well, but he needed to finish his little statement. “You're ... together. And you *can*, so why not. I'm not—. There's nothing to be, you know—” Something occurred to him, in Louis' silence. “It *was* what you wanted, wasn't it?”

“Of course,” Louis snapped, regarding him then with a look of annoyance, transforming into extreme distaste or perhaps embarrassment. He seemed furious, suddenly. And he was shivering, though he couldn't have been cold. Still, Daniel stepped past him and closed the window. He latched it mechanically, feeling Louis' eyes on him. 

“I can't pretend it doesn't bother me,” Daniel said, carefully. He wasn't quite that open-minded—not when it came to Lestat. Lestat who, every decade or so, became suddenly convinced that he *needed* Louis, couldn't bear to live without him, only to lose interest when he realized for the hundredth time that the need inside of him was big enough to engulf entire cities; this was a man, after all, who said he'd wanted “all the world's attention to crush him slowly to death.” And while Louis may have been precious to him, Louis was only one soul; one soul who loved Lestat very much—but no substitute for an audience of adoring fans. No competition, in the end, for the love of strangers. 

Maybe that was changing. Daniel really couldn't say. 

What he did know was that Louis hadn't dressed for Lestat that night. His clothing was his own. A simple coal-black sweater, no jewels or adornments; his trousers—beautifully tailored—slightly rumpled, slightly less than brand-new.

Daniel turned and reached for him, encircling his shoulders, and Louis stiffened, but didn't move away. Daniel stroked his hair, looking down at the unhappy curve of his mouth. Eventually Louis leaned into him a little. But his expression hadn't changed, and his body was tense, his breathing shallow. Ready to fight, it seemed to Daniel. He couldn't help feeling a little honored to be on the receiving end of Louis' anger. 

“I'm fucking jealous, to be honest,” Daniel said, pressing his lips fiercely to Louis' hair. “But,” he sighed, stroking him, “it's not your fault.” Except, of course, it sort of was. Oh, goddamn it, he didn't want to be talking about this. What did he really want to say? What was he here for, anyway? “We miss you,” he whispered. 

Louis took a breath. He laid his head on Daniel's shoulder. And Daniel happened to glance beyond the tangle of Louis' hair, to the book lying open on the abandoned chair, and saw something glinting there in the crease of the spine. Something small and plastic. Louis must have sensed what he was looking at; he went very still, his fingers clutching the folds of Daniel's shirt. “What's that?” Daniel asked in a small voice. “ … Tolstoy?”

“I was coming to see you, as I said,” Louis told him evenly. “But I didn't know if you wanted—” He stopped, breathed out through his nose. “To see *me*,” he finished, looking up into Daniel's eyes. His cheeks were blazing, but he continued with an obvious effort that threatened to burst Daniel's heart: “It's been such a long time. I didn't want to assume you would want these things, with me, after so long. Or after what you saw.”

Daniel crushed their bodies together, his hand on the back of Louis' skull. “I always want to,” he said. “You think I'd—Look, it doesn't matter to me.” 

Louis started to protest. 

“At this moment, let me assure you, it really doesn't matter to me.” Daniel dipped his head to kiss him. Louis had been biting his lower lip, and Daniel tasted it—the sharp, familiar tang of his blood.

“Daniel,” Louis said. “Don't tell him.” 

It took Daniel a moment to realize what he was talking about, who he meant. “I won't.” He doubted Armand would be exactly scandalized by what Daniel had witnessed in the tower, but he would be less than overjoyed. At this thought, Daniel felt a wave of something like sorrow, something like fear, pouring from Louis. Then it was gone. Louis' mind locked tight again. “No,” Daniel repeated. “Of course not.” Louis' hands were under his shirt, his thigh between Daniel's legs, pressing. “I can tell him about this, though, right?” 

“Actually,” Louis breathed, his mouth to Daniels' ear, “I'd like to go to Paris in a few nights, if that's alright. I have to hunt …” 

“You want me to ask him? Because I can speak for us both when I say, Paris is yours. Please come to Paris.”

And Louis was smiling, dragging him back to his lips, the overpowering flavor of his blood. “I miss you, too.” And Daniel knew he meant both of them—himself and the dark-eyed, wounded, and infinitely loving creature waiting some two-hundred-and-fifty miles away, in the hotel.

Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw the window-latch lift. The window trembled only a moment before flying open and banging against the wall, nearly shattering the glass. Then Louis was pulling him back, their mouths still locked together, toward the open window. Louis' legs hit the sill and he dropped to perch himself there, his hands on Daniel's hips. 

Daniel laughed uncertainly, looking down at the water collecting on the wide planks of some rare, priceless timber beneath his feet. They were going to be renovating soon anyway, fuck it. And Louis was already pushing up his shirt, kissing the little hairs below his navel, dragging Daniel closer. Unfastening Daniel's jeans. Sliding them down below his hips. 

It wasn't mortal pleasure that he felt, as Louis suckled gently, but it was pleasure nonetheless. Louis had always done this, even after Daniel's change. He said he liked to, and he seemed to—and Daniel loved watching him, his hollowed cheeks, the tender little movements of his head. Louis' hands slid up to Daniel's ass, coaxing his hips forward even more. Taking the firm, cool length of him as far as he could and holding him tight, pulsing his tongue—as if he could still make Daniel hard this way, as if Daniel had already emptied the syringe, this gift that Louis was offering him, into his veins.

The wind died down, the rain too. But water kept falling, dripping from the roof, the sodden leaves. Daniel could hear it, each, lonely drop, filling up the green world outside. When Daniel finally pulled himself away, Louis let him. Daniel dropped to his knees in front of him, on the wet floor, and looked into his face.

“You can have me like that, Daniel. You can take me, like you used to.” Louis pressed his cheek against Daniel's, and it felt hot, nearly feverish. Strange. Daniel kissed his temple. “Please,” Louis said, the word sending little tremors through his body, settling in the vicinity of his groin. And suddenly, along with the urgent tang of blood and the more abstract smells of wet earth pouring in through the window, Daniel could sense the change in Louis. The hormones still lingering in his body from the night before, pumping through him once again. *Oh.* Louis was looking at him intently, almost sorrowfully.

“Baby …” Daniel placed his hands on Louis' thighs with a solemn tenderness, settling his body in the cradle between them. His hands drifted up the soft wool of Louis' trousers. Then he grazed his palm over Louis' cock and watched his eyes mist over, felt him twitch under his hand. This was new. Daniel made a small, awed sound. Louis grimaced and ducked his head into Daniel's shoulder, his hand on Daniel's, just resting it there as Daniel touched him wonderingly. 

“It *is* shameful, though, isn't it?” Louis said after a moment. “They've always been right about me. I have no will of my own … No will except to give myself—to—” 

“To who? To what?” Daniel didn't mean to growl; it was only the little shuddering movements Louis was making against the press of his hand—and how glorious it was to feel him like this, how he didn't realize a part of him had been waiting for it for so long. He unfastened Louis' trousers, taking care not to simply tear them open. “This has nothing to do with 'will,' does it?” Who would want to fight such a thing, such a gift?

But Louis continued, as if talking to himself. “... Give myself away,” Louis breathed, “to a—” He gave a self-deprecating laugh, unable to finish. 

“Higher power?” Daniel offered dully, unintentionally imagining Lestat's description of the rosary wrapped around Louis' bedpost as he lay bled-out and waiting for death. Superimposed on that image, Louis' arms bound in the remnants of his suit jacket, Louis pinned to the ground, eyes squeezed shut. 

No—too easy. 

Divine surrender. Punishment. Escape. None of those things seemed quite right, didn't seem like the whole story. 

*I hated myself*—Daniel remembered the exact weight of those words, hanging in the air between them, and what he'd thought they'd meant then. But now his mind was producing a different interpretation. It was never really—never *only*—about Louis selling his soul to a dark god, a demon. That's not all that Lestat was. 

Louis gave a pained smile that was nearly hidden in the crook of Daniel's body. “I've never believed in God, not truly. Just—” He gasped as Daniel's fingers closed around him, flesh to flesh. Daniel kissed him, his other hand working under Louis' sweater, sliding up his chest. *I would kneel for you*: Louis' voice in his mind, startling him. Louis never did that, never used his gifts so freely. But here he was, opening windows, speaking mind-to-mind ... Louis looked up at him, his eyes bright. “Please. Let me.”

“If that's what you really want,” Daniel said, once he could speak again. The words turning into a question. He wanted Louis to say it—all of it. It seemed suddenly important in a way it hadn't before, now that Louis was a near-mortal creature in Daniel's arms. Anyone looking at them would see them for most of what they were: two lovers holding each other close in a dark room, living beings with living bodies; two long, slender figures—angular, narrow, male. 

Not that it mattered anymore—these definitions. Mattered less and less, even in the human world. But Louis …

Louis sighed, ducked his head once more. 

“What?”

“It's humiliating.”

“What is?” Daniel laughed a little. “Louis, what?” 

“This.” Louis shivered. “I've never been able to stop, and now … ”

Daniel couldn't help smiling. “So what? So you like sex.” And felt Louis scoff against him—almost a groan. Of course that wasn't what Louis had meant, not exactly. But Daniel felt, suddenly, as if he stood on the edge of a cliff, and he wanted to anchor himself to the last remaining strip of land. He did not want to look down. Down there was “Sin,” and Louis fucking another man, and Louis' desire always to be ground into infinitely finer particles of dust.

Though in his own mind he condemned himself as the worst kind of coward, Daniel refused to look at those things. Not tonight. Instead he kept his voice light, teasing. “So did I, when I was a mortal, and you know, the way *we* do it, when we—”

“Daniel.” Louis gripped at his back in frustration, his face hidden in Daniel's shoulder. But Daniel could feel the heat radiating from it. “You know what I want. If you don't want it—”

“I told you, I always want it.” He leaned his head against Louis'. “I want *you*,” he clarified. “I want to make you happy.” But he couldn't help wincing at his own words, at their insufficiency. 'Happiness' wasn't enough. Wanting someone, even loving someone, wasn't enough; all you had to do was look around this fucking castle—at all the pain, heartbreak, and trauma—to see that. Hadn't they each had enough of those things?

He wrapped his arms around Louis' shoulders, feeling the humid nighttime air gusting through the open window. Louis' hair was damp. It was still a little shocking to him, even well after he'd joined their ranks, that beads of moisture could actually collect in the strands of their strange, invulnerable hair and transform it like this; it was reassuring, actually, that the natural world still had some power over them. 

“I shouldn't have trivialized it,” Daniel whispered. "I know it's not that simple."

Louis didn't say anything. Daniel pulled back and coaxed Louis' head gently from his shoulder, brushing the hair from his face. It really did hurt to look into his eyes—Lestat was right about that, anyway. He was watching Daniel carefully. He looked perhaps a little vexed, a little like he was having an argument that Daniel couldn't hear. 

Horny and aggrieved, Daniel thought. Black and white, soft and hard, his and his. *Sweet, dusty Louis*—yeah, sure, Boss. Daniel touched Louis' silken lip, thinking about all these things. Louis interring Armand's coffin in his family crypt after they parted ways, that first time—then taking it out and smashing it into a thousand pieces.

*Let me tell you my story, maybe you'll learn something … Wrong! You learned wrong!*

God, he was in love. Doomed from the start. 

“What do you want, Louis? I'll do it.”

Louis kissed him, maybe so Daniel couldn't look at him. Against his lips, Louis said, “Let me belong to you?” He kissed Daniel again, slow and deep. *Make me*.

“I can do that,” Daniel murmured, his head spinning. “Whatever you want. But, I'm not going to be your, uh ... 'higher power.' I don't want to be.” 

“Understood.”

“I want to do what you want, and I like to, but—” He clutched Louis to him, sighed into his hair. “Will you tell me … Just one more time?”

“I thought I did.”

“I know, I'm sorry. Will you do it again? In words, Louis. Out-loud.”

“Daniel,” Louis said, pulling him close to speak against his lips. “I want you to use me.” Earnest and soft and pleading. “Own me. Please.” Slowly, so he could feel every syllable against his skin. “Make love to me. I want it.”

Daniel gathered him in his arms, pulled him down into his lap. He realized with a sharp sense of discomfort that this was exactly how Lestat had held him the other night, but he pushed the image out of his mind. It simply wasn't the same. This, what they had, what they were together, was a thing unto itself. It was a force of nature in its own right. He pushed his hips up into Louis, feeling Louis' hard-on grind against his belly. Amazing. Again, Daniel felt the strange urge to weep, as if in the presence of a miracle. 

Louis smiled, and Daniel's heart skipped a beat. “You really do like it.”

“Yes, I believe I've made that clear in the past.”

“I mean, like this.” 

Daniel pulled Louis' hips forward, rocking that lovely hardness against him, and Louis moaned, closing his eyes. “Yes,” Daniel said simply, barely able to speak.

“Tell me what you want?” Louis murmured. “Since you made me say it.” His hands were in Daniel's hair, his face open and searching. “You never tell me.”

“I want to make you come,” Daniel said. 

Louis laughed softly, nipping his jaw.

“I'm yours, too, babe,” Daniel said. “I want to belong to you, too. Any way you want me to.” Louis flinched a little, so Daniel continued quickly. “The exact way you asked me to.” He smiled. “I want to make you feel good. And … be good to you.”

Louis squeezed his sides. He was kissing him again, tracing the points of Daniel's fangs with his tongue. 

Daniel nodded his head in the direction of the syringe. “How long will this thing take?”

 

 

“You might have to visit next time, Boss,” Daniel said into Armand's neck the next evening. They were alone in their room of the suite, Sybelle and Benji out in the parlor waiting for Antoine to rejoin them after his own visit to the castle. “I think we ruined the floor.” 

Cyril had personally escorted him out of the building and into a car a few hours earlier that evening, looking vaguely amused. 

He felt Armand smile against his cheek, and his thumb swiped over the tip of Daniel's cock. *You're different,* Armand had said, only moments after Daniel had walked through the door. *The benefits of science, perhaps?*

“Think about it. Think about him again,” Armand said now, even though Armand couldn't see it, could no longer read his thoughts. And Daniel did. Louis' head thrown back, his skin slippery against the wet floor, the spark of his blood in Daniel's veins. 

“Mmh, that's—” 

“My love,” Armand said, and his voice still fucking got to him. That tone, that depth of feeling. Even out-loud—*especially* out-loud. Liquid and caressing, yet dragging just right over a certain word, a certain syllable. Charging the molecules in the room. It did something to him. “You made him come for you, didn't you?”

And he saw it and felt it as if Louis were on the floor beneath him again—Louis hot in his mouth, the taste of him, Louis' long arms flung over his face as if trying to hide. Daniel's fingers inside of him. And Louis shook, and whined, and—

“That's right, Daniel. So lovely.”

He held Daniel against him as his tremors died away, his hand still wrapped around Daniel's softening cock. In the past, when Daniel was mortal, he might have gone to get a washcloth and cleaned Daniel up with tender, careful motions, but now he seemed to hesitate, keeping his hand there, against Daniel's skin. 

Armand kissed his shoulder. “And after?” he asked. “What did you do?”

Daniel smiled, leaning his head against his unearthly love's soft russet curls. “We just … you know, laid there,” he said weakly. 

“Will you tell me?” Armand coaxed. He always liked to imagine them tangled together, sticky and exhausted. He liked the way they kissed then, the way they touched, sleepily, their limbs gliding against each other, their faces pressed together.

“We could, you know,” Daniel said suddenly. He looked at Armand, meeting his eyes. “You and me. We have the technology,” he said, his mouth quirking. Or they would in the next few days, when Louis arrived in Paris to “hunt.”

Armand's face had gone carefully still, and Daniel couldn't read his expression. That wasn't so unusual, even now, but he'd hoped to catch a spark of interest lighting up those somber eyes. Instead, he saw only their amber glow, their raw, dreadful beauty, and he was finding himself drawn into them for the thousandth time, without the slightest whisper of persuasion. 

“Don't you want to?” Daniel said, his fingers clutching Armand's thigh. “I could finally give you what you've given me.” I want you in my mouth, he thought. I want to taste you. Armand couldn't hear him, but he didn't have to.

“*You* are a gift to me, Daniel.” His voice was low, his eyes fierce. “I need nothing more.”

“Think about it. You could—”

“I'll consider it.”

“Consider it now.” 

“Daniel.” His tone darkened subtly. 

“Or,” Daniel murmured, nuzzling closer, kissing Armand's jaw. “You and Louis ...” He couldn't stop himself. The idea suddenly loomed large in his mind, eclipsing all previous notions. “I want to see you together,” he whispered. At this, Armand balked, edging away from Daniel on the couch. 

Was it the mention of Louis? The idea of Daniel watching? It couldn't be that last thing. Surely it wasn't too much to ask at this point in their relationship, after the long, blurry years Armand had spent inside his head and experiencing him--his every move, his every breath--through the minds of others. As for the question of his two loves sharing a bed …

Recent years had seen dramatic changes in them both. Tragedy, this time, had drawn them together, under one rooftop and into each other's arms. Daniel had witnessed it himself, their quiet courtship, in fragments stolen here and there. He'd seen their forays in tentative hand-holding—something that positively amazed him when he'd noticed, for instance, Louis thread his long fingers through Armand's one night, walking down a deserted street. A lingering touch, a whispered word. So sweet together, so beautiful—beyond beautiful, the two of them. All long lashes and silken skin; hushed, liquid voices. He'd been barely able to contain the joy and satisfaction in his heart to see them talking softly, heads brushing together—like kids, like newlyweds—sharing small smiles, eyes alight. He'd seen them embrace. He'd seen them kiss. 

Hadn't they shared blood in the years that Daniel was away? They must have. The idea that nothing beyond these careful touches had happened in all that time was shocking, considering the depth of love each held for the other—a physical force that Daniel felt thrumming in his own body whenever he was around them, whenever he wet his fangs in their blood. But, Daniel knew, there were many ways to love, and infinite ways to express that love. Though he certainly had his own preferences in that regard. 

At any rate, he knew better than to keep pushing in the face of these clear signals to just stop fucking talking about it. He could wait. He tucked himself back into his boxer-briefs, a sticky mess, oh well, and draped his arm over the back of his couch. 

“Forget it, Boss,” he said gently. “Come here? Please?” He touched Armand's arm, loving the solid feel of him, his compact, rounded muscles, so different from Louis'. “You must be thirsty. And I have some things to show you.”

When his darling laid him down on their bed and finally poised his teeth against his neck, Daniel hooked his ankle over Armand's calf and said, “Tell me.” Tell me what you want me to see, tell me what you want me to feel. Fused to his pulse, Armand would be able to draw out little glimmers of feeling, fragments of thought, sights and sounds. Images swam in Daniel's mind at the ready, images of Louis' body working urgently against his own, Louis' glossy wet hair like spilled ink against the floorboards—along with sensations: Daniel's own longing, his ecstasy, his love. His blood flooded with these secrets, beating with them, waiting for Armand to pull them from his body and into his open mouth. 

“Daniel,” Armand said against his skin. Dark. Electric. Patient. Daniel stilled in anticipation, clutching him tight. “Think about how you held each other.”

Daniel smiled. He could do one better. He rolled them onto their sides, pulling Armand closer. Entwining their legs. The way he and Louis had lain in each other's arms the night before, the exact way. “Now,” he said, guiding Armand to his throat. “Let me show you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/4/19: Thanks for reading! Since a few comments mentioned it, and it is indeed unclear, I just wanted to let you know that the next bit of the series will definitely discuss the reasons behind Armand's wariness about the injections as well as what it would really mean for him to take a more active role in the trio. Also, I changed the status of this part to "incomplete" since the next piece will likely be a direct continuation of this chapter--although it could be a while before I'm able to make another update. Basically, I don't know what I'm doing, haha. Thanks again for bearing with me. ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel and Armand have a long chat about Louis, among other things.

Daniel was stretched out on a sagging little bed in a Normandy farmhouse, looking up at the shining beams interlocking neatly above him and thinking about what it must have taken to hand-hew those shits, and wondering absurdly whether he could build a house. The sensible thing to do would be to start with a shed or something small and--

I should learn a trade, he thought. I should learn French. Thanks to Armand he did know a little; he could learn to speak fluently if he tried. I should go on a walk. I should stop thinking about sex. Think of all the other things I could be thinking about if I could just train myself to, you know, really focus, and really apply myself -- my skills -- if only for a little while. 

He was a writer. He could write. But whenever he tried, his imagination always produced the same tumble of lowlit, deeply stirring images -- exactly the kind of things he was trying to avoid. That, or the surfacing of a tendon in a sweetly bared neck. Or other things -- fucking nightmarish things. Mostly, he froze at the idea of writing anything. He was breaking into a sweat now, just thinking about it.

And when he thought about himself “focusing,” he thought only of what that had meant in the past. Obsession. Complete immersion at the cost of everything else. Losing himself. 

He could see himself hunched over a laptop, moving sentences around as he’d moved his tiny model villages, lost in his imaginary worlds but never satisfied with them -- forever. And if people one day read his words and enjoyed them, so what? He should go back to journalism. Reporting. Doing something meaningful. Doing something meaningful for people he wanted to kill, and would have to kill, just so he could go on doing something meaningful for them. It was all self-indulgence in the end. Self-indulgence and delusion and fatuous, sickening vanity.

“You sound like him,” Armand had said, gently.

Meaning Louis, of course.

Louis never showed up to Paris. A week went by, and finally they received a letter at the hotel telling them he’d been delayed. Daniel had held Louis’ “letter,” if that’s what you’d call it, at arm’s length. “ _ Fuck? _ Is  _ this _ ?” He’d never seen Louis’ handwriting before. It wasn’t what he’d expected. It was spidery and careless and huge on the page -- no attempt to make the letters pleasing to the eye -- the words a thin webbing clinging to a scrap of shitty, waxy paper. Daniel had been alarmed. But Armand had assured him the handwriting was normal. 

“Why didn’t he text? Where did he get a stamp?” It looked like Louis had gone down to the (useless) kitchen, torn off a corner of butcher paper, scribbled off this hasty, colorless message and jammed it in an envelope like it had offended him. Had he licked the envelope? Daniel found himself looking for a telltale pink stain. “Daniel,” Armand had said.

He’d just wanted to see if he could smell him. Sense a little piece of Louis latched to the paper, that wasn’t this disturbing scrawl. “Nothing but glue, relax.” 

“Louis can buy stamps, Daniel. He’s perfectly capable.”   


“I know he can. But I don’t think he’s capable.”

Armand cocked his head.   


“He has the handwriting,” Daniel said slowly, “of a homicidal great-grandmother. This could have been written on a doily and stuck to the wall with melted hard candies and, like, lint and blood. I thought he loved words--”

“Perhaps he loves them too much to worship them.”

Daniel looked at the note. “It’s like he’s punishing them.”

Armand took the paper from Daniel’s hand and stuck it in his pocket. Daniel wondered why on earth he would want to keep it, and whether he had a collection of strange missives and diary pages in Louis’ awful handwriting hidden away somewhere. He probably did. They were all creeps, every single one of them. Himself included--sniffing envelopes, hoping for the faintest hint of Louis’ blood. 

Armand no longer collected things as he once had. He no longer seemed interested in fanatically cataloging the world. But he was still moved by it. While Daniel had been having a particularly sweaty and unsexy existential crisis upstairs, Armand had been walking the rolling, forested hills surrounding the farmhouse, perfectly content to let the world wash over him rather than marching through it like a desperate tourist arriving late to the museum, as he used to (“I want wealth, Daniel!! What do clothes mean?”). He’d been excited about finding a feral cat near the creek that day. Daniel didn’t know what had become of the poor thing, and hadn’t asked. 

Daniel had agreed on the farmhouse earlier that week. He was already sick of those stiff, luxurious rooms at the hotel, sick of the city. He’d wanted to go somewhere they could be alone, just the three of them -- and Armand had said he had a place that he and Louis had used before (Daniel had no idea what Armand had meant by that, but he could dream). 

“Write him back,” Armand had said. “Tell him where to meet us.” He turned from Daniel with a slight flourish that Daniel recognized as a gesture of nearly uncontainable excitement, pacing back and forth in front of the window as he gave instructions: Daniel was not to give the address; Louis would know where he meant; remember that the note could be read by anyone--

“Don’t order me around.”

Armand smirked, his eyes flashing. “Of course not, Daniel,” he said innocently. Daniel frowned. “I only thought you’d prefer writing him.”   


Daniel sighed. It was true, he would. “I’ll text him.” He was about to say that Lestat probably read his mail, but he probably went through his phone, as well. 

  


 

They’d been hunting in the little lake-town a few miles from the cottage, the night before Louis was supposed to arrive.

“Maybe he’s right,” Daniel said. He’d just brought up the idea of “doing something useful,” maybe writing -- then lamenting that it was just vanity that served no true purpose in the world, not even in their own world (a rather limited one for all its supposed perks).    


“He’s right that it doesn’t matter,” Armand replied calmly. “But it’s more likely the true vanity lies in placing the burden of meaning-creation entirely on oneself, in needing to be ‘useful’ to justify--”

“Forget it,” Daniel had said, dragging a hand over his face. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I worry, Daniel. If you’re unhappy--”

“I’m very happy! I’ve always been … content.” He ignored Armand’s look, for the moment, wanting to finish his thought. “It’s just … Don’t you miss  _ making _ something? You know. Painting?” He was taking a risk, talking about that. Perhaps he should have brought up Armand’s home-movies instead.

But Armand only gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Having a purpose, then?”   


“And what purpose would that be?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his stomach dropping. “I didn’t mean--shit. I didn’t mean--” 

Armand didn’t seem to really hear him. He was thinking. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘purpose.’ I’ve had roles.”

All chosen for him by others, placing him at the mercy of those more powerful. No one had even bothered with a last name, calling him whatever suited them at the time. Always one name, like a pet.

“Is that why--” Daniel pulled up short. “--you don’t want to do the injections?” 

“Sex is of little interest to me.”   


“ _ What? _ ” he snorted, shocked into laughter. “Since when?”

“Don’t misunderstand. I like to watch you, Daniel,” Armand said, the shadow of a smile on his lips. “I love touching you. I like seeing you helpless. I like how much you like it.”

Daniel’s ears were red, he could feel them. Armand’s hair had fallen over his eyes, and he wanted to push it aside so he could look at that beautiful face -- a face  _ he knew in his heart _ was capable of, in fact, the filthiest smiles, the most effortlessly smoldering looks, the laziest, dirtiest kisses Daniel had ever had the privilege of experiencing. Who was Armand trying to fool? He tried a different tact. “But don’t you want to try? It might be--different.”

“It’s always the same. The mechanics,” he amended quickly, ignoring Daniel’s incredulous look. “I don’t need it. The things that matter, if you want to talk about ‘meaning’--the things that matter, we’ve done them.” It was the end of the discussion. “You and Louis may do what you like. Although, I’m surprised that Louis would allow such a thing ...”   


Daniel tensed. “Why?” he asked sharply, a little surprised at his reaction, and glad that Armand couldn’t read his mind.    


Armand was watching Daniel closely. “I only wondered,” he said carefully, “why he would allow the injections, when I think he preferred ....”

“Preferred what?” Daniel’s voice sounded strange and small to himself.   


“I don’t know.”   


“Preferred,” Daniel said, chewing his lip, “not experiencing mortal arousal?” 

“It was only speculation, Daniel,” Armand murmured, a note of apology in his voice.

“So he couldn’t … So as long as he didn’t climax, or experience human pleasure … it didn’t  _ count _ ? Is that what you’re saying to me?” But Daniel wasn’t listening anymore, struggling against a sinking sensation as his mind sifted through a tumble of increasingly disturbing thoughts. By this logic, if Louis let himself be fucked but didn’t come, he was only letting someone use him, he really wasn’t participating in the act itself. “That’s insane.”   


Armand shrugged. Daniel wished he’d never fucking learned how to do that. He was too good at it. He did it all the time -- yet another substitute for opening his mouth and talking. 

He felt as though he might be sick. “Why would you let me do that to him?”   


Armand actually winced. 

“That’s so  _ fucked up _ . It’s like I took advantage--of someone who--”   


“Daniel,” Armand said softly. “It wasn’t.” He pressed his hand. “You didn’t.”

“But you must know how he really felt about it.”

“I don’t.” Armand looked up at him, the vaguely pleading look in his eyes silencing Daniel’s protests. “Truly, I don’t. I’ve never been able to read him very well.”   


“As opposed to--”

“I could hear every thought in your head as it was forming,” Armand said plainly, and Daniel wondered if he should feel insulted, “even if I didn’t always understand what it meant. You’ve always been a mystery to me, my love,” he said, softening his voice and looking away. “Louis’ thoughts were … muddled. They always were. Still are. Although, as you know, his mind is often closed.”

“What do you mean, ‘muddled’?” he asked. Noticing Armand’s hesitance, he added, “It’s only--I think I know what you mean.”

They’d moved, as if by instinct, to the edge of the water. Armand stared straight ahead. “Confusion. Panic. Too many impulses and desires, all coming through at once. And it’s hard to tell which is the important one.” He worried his bottom lip for moment, something he rarely did when he thought anyone was watching. “I think it’s hard for him to tell.”

Daniel was staring into space, suddenly exhausted. He remembered that feeling himself. He’d started drinking -- initially -- to slow his thoughts, to narrow his focus to allow only one idea through at a time. It helped with editing. It helped him know what to cut. It helped him feel confident in his ability to, in fact, know which ideas were the important ones, and strike down all the rest without wondering whether he should have mulled them over further, whether his opinion might change if given proper time and context. Armand, of course, had taken advantage of this vice, intentionally or not. 

Armand took his hand again, leading him away from the water to walk along the strip of bright shore. “You remember how he described me?” he said quietly, and Daniel thought, reluctantly. “My face, Daniel.”

Sinewy, male. A face more “masculine” than Lestat’s. He smiled. 

“I made him see me that way. You must have guessed.” He hadn’t, actually. Armand glanced wearily up at Daniel. “Because that was what he wanted. The kind of face he would respond to.”

Daniel felt his mouth twist in a bitter smile. “And love,” he said.   


“Yes.”

“And then he said he only wanted … your knowledge. Your guidance.” He’d basically said he’d wanted Armand to fuck his brain, which, Daniel supposed, was exactly what Armand had done.

“He wanted to believe he had no will. He was exhausted.” Armand looked exhausted when he talked about it. He ignored the waves, the stars, the beautiful nighttime world pressing up around them. He was looking at something else. “I knew what he wanted. I understood it.”

Daniel couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. “You wanted to control him.” It would have been second-nature to Armand, back then. When Armand appeared to consider this, as if he were about to argue it, Daniel said, quietly, “You did.” 

Armand sighed. “I wanted to do what he wanted. What I saw in his mind.”

“You said you could never read him properly.”   


“I saw the desires that aligned with my own, and disregarded the rest, it’s true. I wanted him -- I wanted him as an  equal ,” he said, the pleading look returning to his eyes, as if begging Daniel to believe him, “and I didn’t want to wait for him to struggle with his conflicted heart.” In case, after all, it didn’t lead to you, Daniel thought. “I knew that he would never stop struggling, if I let it go on. And I worried he might harm himself. I thought I could make things simpler.” He was speaking quietly, in a strange, flat voice, looking down at the endless plain of sand disappearing under their feet. 

Armand had never spoken about this before. He’d shown Daniel things -- what he’d done to Louis in the years after Paris. The frantic press of his hands and lips against Louis’ impassive flesh, and the rending that followed. But of the time before, Daniel knew only what Louis had told him. 

“If he didn’t know his own thoughts, his own feelings,” Armand was saying in a low, pained voice, almost to himself, “if his true act of will was to conceal them from himself -- it made controlling him, or pretending to control him, giving the illusion that he had no will and required guidance--”

“Required _ you _ .”   


“It made it easy.”

“And that’s the other reason, isn’t it? Why you won’t … with him, or with me.”

“I don’t need it. I’ve already explained.”

“You don’t want to be in power.”

“I prefer to watch, and to touch.”

“And you don’t want to surrender power, either.”

“Enough.” He said it quietly enough, but it wasn’t a request.

At one time Daniel might have let it go, secure in the knowledge they’d have an eternity to discuss such things. Why not save yet another important conversation for yet another day, when they had more time than they could ever need, when no force in the universe could ever drive them apart? He was no longer quite that foolish. “But what if it’s not like that? What if we went slowly?”

“Daniel.” Armand shut his eyes. He’d released Daniel’s hand a while ago and now tucked his hands in his pockets.

“We have a whole week,” Daniel said, lightly.

Armand chuckled humorlessly. But he allowed Daniel to wrap an arm around him.

“Think about it,” Daniel continued. “It’s so peaceful here.” He leaned into Armand, so that their sides bumped together as they walked. “And we have all night, every night--or nearly. Nothing has to happen. Let me make some suggestions. We can start small.” 

“I don’t want to know what your suggestions might be.” His voice was surly, but Daniel wasn’t fooled.

“Listen,” Daniel said. “What if we don’t use the syringes at first? None of us. What if we take it really slow? It’s better that way, anyway.”

“You don’t think so.”

“I never think so, but when it comes down to it I always like it more when it is.”

Armand breathed out through his nose, but said nothing.

Daniel’s heart leapt with joy. He knew what that meant. Armand was considering it.

  
  


Before dawn, enclosed in layers of thick white curtains pulled around their bed, Armand asked if Daniel planned to start reporting again.

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps you should.” He sighed when Daniel ran his fingers through his curls, and Daniel pretended not to notice. “Then you might stop interviewing  _ me _ .” 

“I don’t know if I can write anymore.”

“You might enjoy going into counseling, then. Providing free analysis that no one asks for or wants.”

“But desperately needs.” 

Armand nipped Daniel’s collarbone.    


“Trust me, it’s not a job I want, or am qualified for.” He kissed Armand’s head, smelling the water they’d been walking beside, and under that, the hot, rich scent of his blood. “Anyway, aren’t we already helping society, ridding the world of ‘evildoers’?”

Armand rolled so that he was astride Daniel, a gentle hand tracing Daniel’s cheek, despite the burning ire behind his next words: “Don’t spout that nonsense to me.”

“Let’s do the ‘things that matter,’ then,” Daniel said, settling his hands on Armand’s thighs. “If you’re really not going waste your time doing something so trivial as putting your dick in me and making all my dreams come true.” Daniel expected a warning glare, at most, but Armand only went on caressing his cheek, his eyes moving over his face in a way that made him feel more naked than he already was. He swallowed.

“Daniel,” Armand smiled. “I can have you at my mercy anytime I want.” Armand leaned over him, his hands on either side of Daniel’s head.

“True,” Daniel said sagely. “But the least you could do is come on my face.”

Armand sank his fangs into his shoulder. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio spend their first evening at the cottage. Things get a little out of control, despite Daniel's best efforts and Armand's supposed indifference, before they're interrupted.

No one could look into Daniel’s heart and say he hadn’t had a plan, one any reasonable being would consider sensitive, thoughtful -- nay, circumspect. 

The plan involved a progression. There was to be a gradual progression, starting first with nonsexual touching, perhaps, then moving slowly and steadily along a scheduled timeline until they reached the ultimate goal -- sometime near the end of the week, once they had fully discussed every aspect of who would do what, to whom, and so on -- of pure, unmitigated fucking, and  _ not a second before _ . 

He hadn’t counted on two things. 

Number one, and the true killing blow to his diligent scheming -- Louis arrived high off his ass on what Daniel could only assume were a series of recent, repeated hormone injections in service to some kind of desperate reclaiming ritual at the behest of the Prince. He should’ve guessed, really. And he should’ve taken into account the second contingency as well: that Armand had underestimated the power of proximity. He had stayed out the room with them, before, for a reason. (Well, that’s what he deserved for being so smug; Daniel would lord that over him for the rest of eternity.)

By “high off his ass on hormones,” Daniel meant that Louis was his usual serene, lovely self, walking up the road to the cottage as though he’d just materialized there from a cloud of soot-black butterflies or some such magical shit, a veritable forest god with green, green eyes, Angela Carter’s Erl-King, “the tender butcher” himself, etc., looking at the trees and the sky and finally at Daniel, his face brightening into a smile, nothing strange there. Except that when Daniel held him he noticed that Louis’ skin carried a faint warmth, a faint scent, that had nothing to do with borrowed human fluids -- these things emanated from  _ him _ , amplifying the smoky fragrance of his own unique blood and carrying undertones of heady, spice-smelling chemicals. Daniel buried his face in Louis neck, smiling when he felt Louis’ breath coming a little faster. 

“Sorry,” he said when pulled back. “It’s just that--” He drew his fingers through Louis’ hair, pressing his lips to his temple and inhaling through his nose. “You  _ smell _ .”

Louis withdrew a little, tilting his head so that his hair fell back over his face. “Thank you,” he said, quietly and pleasantly enough, though he aimed a withering look at the ground, straightening his collar. Daniel couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arms around him in a snug embrace and grinned. “You smell  _ horny _ .” Now Louis pulled away in earnest, face twisted in distaste. He easily escaped. “Wait! Wait!” Daniel laughed, reaching out for him. “Let me--” Amazingly, Louis allowed Daniel to push his hair aside and take a few experimental sniffs. Louis did not attempt to hide his disgust, however, his shoulders rising into points as Daniel sighed happily against his neck.

Daniel wondered fleetingly if this is what Louis had smelled like when he was mortal, or if what he was breathing in was merely a synthetic approximation of Louis’ long-lost and unreproducible personal biology; he preferred to believe the former. Daniel wondered what Louis would taste like now. 

“It’s the injections,” Louis said, closing his eyes. “They’re taking longer to wear off.” He relaxed his shoulders, leaning into Daniel slightly as Daniel stopped the theatrics and simply breathed him in. “You’re like an animal,” Louis muttered, managing not to sound entirely displeased.

“You’re wonderful,” Daniel said seriously.

Louis frowned, releasing a sharp, dismissive breath through his nose. 

“And anyway,” Daniel said consideringly, running his hands down Louis sides, “between the two of us most like an animal right now, don’t you think that would have to be you?” He shifted to stand behind Louis, one of his favorite places on earth, and when his hands reached the small of Louis’ back, he growled contentedly to see his thumbs overlapping at the center of his spine.  

He opened his mind, allowing the satisfaction flooding his chest to leap beyond the confines of his body, to be absolutely sure that Louis understood. Understood what he felt, and what he wanted.

Because it was true -- even though he couldn’t, just yet, and shouldn’t even be able to feel these things, according to the old myths, he  _ wanted _ . He wanted, specifically, with every undead cell in his body, to be inside Louis, wanted Louis clenching sweetly around his cock as he surged forward, reaching for that very spot, the narrowest part of Louis’ body; he wanted to look down and see his hands spanning greedily over Louis flesh at this tender place at his very core. 

Louis’ breath hitched, and Daniel couldn’t resist grinding into him a little. Fuck, they hadn’t even gotten inside the house yet; he was being a terrible host, and this was so unfair -- although he was thrilled to know his little fantasies had such an effect on Louis.  _ You want me like that, babe? I can’t fucking wait to give it to you _ . But then he had a panicked little thought--Louis wasn’t carrying anything-- 

_ I have them _ , Louis said wordlessly.  _ In my coat _ . 

Daniel closed his eyes. Thank God. Thank Fareed. I should send him a fruit basket.  

He was ignoring, for the moment, the beginnings of a hard-on he could see straining through Louis’ pants. He groaned into his hair, muttering, “ _ Fuck _ . Fuck, we’re not supposed to be doing this yet.”

Louis gave a huff of laughter. “What?” 

“The mechanics … We’re supposed to wait for this part.”

“The--mechanics?” The laughter had reached Louis’ voice. He turned in Daniel’s arms when Daniel didn’t answer, silencing anything he might have said with one of those soft, limitless kisses that said he didn’t have a care in the world, that he was where he wanted to be, doing exactly what he wanted to do. He was still smiling, and Daniel almost pulled away so he could see it. 

“Bastard,” Daniel was saying in a muffled voice, as one of Louis’ fangs dragged across his lip. “Mmph … Louis--! Fucking … love you …”   

“Shh,” Louis said. But his fingers dug a little harder into his flanks. 

They were still standing in the road, pressed tightly together, when Armand found them. Daniel had his fingers cupping Louis’ jaw, holding him still so he could reach the tender little place behind his ear that smelled so good; he was pressing his fangs there, nipping and sucking but not biting down, and Louis was gripping Daniel’s arm with one hand and grasping the fabric of his jeans with the other, pulling restlessly at Daniel’s hips to grind them against this own.

Daniel wasn’t sure how long Armand had been watching. He looked like he’d just emerged from the woods to see them like that, and had frozen at the edge of the trees, standing eerily still -- less like the controlled, powerful creature he knew and more like a rabbit about to bolt. Daniel had rarely, if ever, seen Armand so unsure of himself. The fingers of one hand were stretched out to balance against a tree, as if for support. He almost grinned to see that. Oh, this was going to be easy. He hid his smile in the crook of Louis’ shoulder. He knew the moment Louis noticed Armand’s presence, because he jerked a little in Daniel’s arms, his fingers tightening on Daniel’s jeans. And then he heard a door closing. Armand had gone inside. 

  
  


They followed Armand into the house, heading straight to the big bed on the main floor, no sign of their elusive Perv Mignon along the way. Daniel assumed it would be yet another night of Armand keeping himself at a distance. Too bad. 

Too bad for Armand that Louis’ mind was sealed up tight -- a fact that Daniel registered just as Louis pressed him up against the wall and pushed his shirt up to his armpits. No spying. What a shame.

They’d discarded Louis’ soft black coat in the hallway, saving the syringes for another night; this way, Daniel could focus on getting Louis off without distraction, and they could ease into things as planned.

They were both undressed, on the bed, well and deep into a leisurely make-out session when Armand appeared in the doorway. A brief pause in Louis’ kiss, coupled with a faint, hollow charge in the air, told Daniel that he and Armand were speaking mind-to-mind. Daniel waited tensely, figuring there was some reason Armand wanted to confer privately with Louis. As rude as it fucking was. 

The moment passed, the atmosphere shifted, and Louis began licking into Daniel’s mouth again. Yet Armand didn’t move. Louis pulled away to murmur, “I told him to come in.” 

Daniel raised himself up on one arm, pushed his hair from his eyes. He just looked at him for a moment, at the form Daniel knew so well silhouetted in the doorway, standing very straight and still like before, his gravity so strong Daniel could almost feel space bending around him. “Armand?”

He could see the eyes glowing faintly. As if released from invisible cords, the figure finally moved, stepping into the room and passing through a square of moonlight, making a wide circle around the bed. 

Louis rolled onto his back to watch him, his knee coming up smoothly to hide himself in an unintentionally demure, modelesque pose that made Daniel’s mouth twitch in amusement. He placed his hand on Louis’ shin and moved his palm a little, addressing Armand as he approached the edge of the bed. “Sweetness,” he said. Armand’s eyebrow shot up. “Louis wants us to take care of him.” Armand shifted his gaze to Louis, whose eyes seemed to burn for a moment before flickering away. The only movement in the room was Daniel’s hand, slowly caressing the hairs below Louis’ knee. He didn’t dare stop. He waited while a steady pressure built in his chest, his eyes resting on Armand the whole time.

Very carefully, Armand knelt at the edge of the bed and reached out to touch Louis’ cheek. Louis didn’t move, didn’t lift his head -- but he took a shaky breath, and his eyes closed. After a moment, his hand came up, enclosed Armand’s, his long fingers guiding Armand’s hand to his mouth. He kissed it.

Daniel nuzzled happily into Louis’ neck for a moment, vibrating with triumph as Armand climbed onto the bed. Armand’s hand was still pressed to Louis’ lips when Daniel sat back up; Louis’ lashes were lowered, and Daniel could see that he was trembling a little. Daniel reached out to grasp their interlocked hands in his. With utmost care, he pulled them to Louis’ chest, not letting go as he leaned forward to press his lips to Louis’. “Okay?” he whispered. 

Louis gave the tiniest of nods. But his eyes raised to look into Daniel’s for a moment, and Daniel felt his heart beating faster. It didn’t help that he smelled fucking delicious, and his lips looked puffy and well-kissed, and his sweet, anxious expression was searing Daniel to his core. Or that Armand was right there, watching them from mere inches away, instead of from across the city or sealed away on the other side of the door. And he was nervous too; Daniel knew that without looking at him. Then Louis’ hand started moving. It was sliding down his own chest, still grasping Armand’s, trailing down the planes of his stomach as his knee moved aside, making room. 

Armand drew closer to Louis. Daniel’s own hand wandered away, dragging across Louis’ thigh -- but Louis’ kept inching downward, guiding Armand’s hand with an almost heartrending, teenaged clumsiness to his cock, which lay half-hard and dusky in beautifully obscene contrast to his bleached-white skin. 

Daniel thought he might faint with joy when Armand’s fingers finally reached it, brushed against it, Armand’s own eyes locked to that point as Louis’ hand fell away, allowing Armand to touch him as he wished. Daniel must have made a small sound because Louis reached out for him, pulling him gently to his side and turning his own face into Daniel’s neck. Daniel went on petting his thigh as Armand traced the outline of his cock with one finger, teasing him, watching it slowly fill out -- clearly moved to awe, as Daniel had been, by the experience of seeing Louis’ body reacting this way for the first time. 

And it was obvious from Armand’s helplessly absorbed expression that he had been caught completely off-guard, all his protests going out the window the minute he’d reached out and touched Louis’ face. He hadn’t known what it would really mean to be welcomed to their shared bed. He’d been woefully unprepared.

Daniel didn’t feel sorry for him at all.

“Take your clothes off, babe,” Daniel suggested helpfully.

Armand turned his amber eyes on him with an intensity that almost made him try to disappear into the covers. “No.” 

Louis let his head roll back on the pillow, lips pursed and eyes tightly closed. It looked torturous, the way Armand was stroking him. So slowly, feather-light, mostly with just one finger. After a while, Louis couldn’t help bucking uselessly against the soft touches, but Daniel pinned him to the mattress by the hip. 

“Hold onto the headboard, darling,” he said, mostly to give Louis’ hands something to do. And because Louis would look good with his arms over his head, propped up on a small mountain of white pillows that would only make his inky hair more radiantly black, the two spots of pink high on his cheeks burn brighter. 

Inspired by this vision, Daniel didn’t wait for Louis to comply, grasping his wrists and lifting them over his head, until his hands brushed the metal frame of the headboard. Louis’ fingers wrapped around the bars automatically.

“Good boy,” Armand said, his voice dripping approval. And Daniel just looked at him. He wanted to laugh but he didn’t know how the sound would come out -- possibly, as a hysterical little giggle, which wouldn’t do. We’re going  _ there _ , are we? Much had changed since their conversation the night before.

In any case, Daniel felt his breath catch in his throat, and beside him, Louis’ eyes slid open to watch Armand with a curiously vacant gaze. He blinked, his chest rose and fell gently, that was all. Armand looked pleased. Without warning, he pressed his thumb to Louis’ slit. Louis’ back arched -- as well as it could, with Daniel’s arm clamped over him -- but he didn’t make a sound, and his eyes never left Armand’s, until Armand relented, and Louis’ body fell back, and his eyes drifted closed again.

This went on for some time -- Armand applying pressure, Louis thrashing helplessly, Armand backing off, Armand’s eyes dragging over Louis, over Daniel beside him, making Daniel feel slightly faint. But Daniel was trying to focus on Louis, to make sure he felt safe and well taken care of. Louis had been oddly quiet.

Daniel nuzzled Louis’ ear. “Everything alright?” 

Louis opened his eyes. “I--” His head fell back as Armand squeezed his tip. Metal creaked in his hands. Daniel snapped his head toward Armand in irritation.

Armand’s eyes were soft -- long-lashed as ever and full of fierce devotion, if not for that unmistakable glint of sheer  _ wickedness _ sparking there as he looked at Louis panting into a pillow, and now, finally, to Daniel, laying beside him. And Daniel couldn’t help seeing them them through Armand’s eyes: Daniel’s bare chest pressed to Louis’ side and his arm wrapped around his body, holding him down. Their faces close together -- Louis’, contorted in agony; and Daniel’s, wide-eyed as he stared up at Armand with a mixture of fear and lust. Armand’s mouth crooked into the faintest smile. It sent shivers down Daniel’s spine. Not entirely in a good way. Which, naturally, he liked -- under regular circumstances. At the moment, however, he was trying to check in with Louis.

He narrowed his eyes, staring back at Armand. “Stop interfering,” he said quietly.  

Armand blinked. “I’m sorry, Daniel,” he murmured, backing off Louis’ slightly.

“This is important.”

“I wasn’t--”

“Paying attention. Yeah, no shit.” Armand had been so completely absorbed in what he was doing to Louis, he probably hadn’t even heard Daniel’s question -- only sensed in Louis a sudden clarity, which he instinctively wanted to take away. Not so different, perhaps, from the old Armand. Which is precisely what Daniel was concerned about just then. “It’s okay. Don’t do it again, though, love. We’re supposed to be taking this slow, remember?” 

To his surprise, Armand leaned down for a kiss (though, Daniel noticed, his hand never left Louis’ dick, rubbing small circles at the base even as he nicked his tongue on Daniel’s fangs). “I like you like this,” Armand said. Daniel swallowed, feeling the blood vibrating in him and not knowing quite what Armand meant.   


“Yeah, well, listen to me then,” he said, trying to ignore the sweet burn in his veins and the laughter in Armand’s eyes. Daniel spoke to Louis, caressing his side. “Are you good, babe?” he asked. “Just like this?”

Louis turned his eyes to Armand. Armand squeezed him gently in response, gave him two light strokes that brought Louis’ back arching off the bed. Daniel guessed he couldn’t fault him for that. “Yes,” Louis said, shivering. He was still looking at the figure hanging above him, not at Daniel.   

Daniel rose, so that he was kneeling at Louis’ side.

“Louis,” Armand said coaxingly, as if trying to rouse him.

Louis was gazing at him with gleaming dark eyes, his toes curling into the covers as Armand gave him another, firmer stroke. “A-ah ...”

If Daniel didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Armand was doing something to him -- going inside his head like he used to and drawing him into his undertow. 

But, did he truly know better? Armand could say what he wanted, but could he resist the urge to take Louis apart like that? Would he even know he was doing it? He could he be spellbinding him by accident, simply slipping back into a familiar role, spurred on by his desire to make Louis feel  _ good _ , to make Louis needy and mindless and  _ his _ .

Daniel searched for Louis’ mind until he felt his consciousness butting up against its borders, finding it closed, as usual. Good. Although, just because it was closed to Daniel didn’t mean that Armand couldn’t reach it. 

Of course there was another possibility. That Louis was the one falling into a role. Maybe one he liked, under the circumstances. Maybe it was all okay. Daniel just didn’t fucking know. This is why they should’ve stuck to the plan -- there was too much that could grow wrong. Years of destructive patterns to resist, and nobody thinking straight. Shit, this could be a real disaster --

While he was spiraling, his two loves were continuing on their heedless, sexy journey, gloriously unimpeded by notions of right and wrong, safety, or sanity. As usual.

Louis had shifted his body to encircle Armand, hooking his long legs around him and drawing him suggestively into the space between his thighs (without for a moment disobeying the instruction to keep hold of the headboard, Daniel noticed). Louis’ legs folded snugly against his own body and around Armand, enclosing Armand’s shorter, stockier frame right where he wanted him. Daniel considered revoicing his suggestion that Armand be naked, but didn’t want to run the risk of pushing them further along the fucking-timeline than they already were; they were merely to help get Louis off tonight, nothing more. As Louis’ ankles locked behind his back, Armand’s lips spread into a slow smile -- a smile! -- his eyes crinkling beautifully. “So good for us, Louis.”

Louis closed his eyes, his skin flushing all the way to the base of his neck, and Armand leaned down to press his lips to Louis’ jaw, his smile replaced by a quiet, serious expression Daniel had seen many times before. Things were about to get a little more intense. 

No sooner had he had that thought than Armand began pumping Louis’ cock in long, even strokes, his chest still pressed to Louis’. Louis went rigid, his mouth falling open against the side of Armand’s face.

Daniel heard himself groan as he watched those practiced fingers twist deftly around the tip, and Louis gasped and dug his heels into the backs of Armand’s thighs. It looked like they were fucking. They might as well have been fucking. “So desperate,” Armand murmured, supposedly to Louis, but Daniel could see he’d raised his head slightly to watch Daniel, who was sitting there with a stricken look on his face, leaning slightly forward with his hands wadded in the covers. 

He jumped. Shit. He could feel his ears burning. What was this going to be like with all three of them on fucking hormones? He couldn’t imagine living through it, even with an immortal body built for nothing if not for endurance. Not that he wasn’t willing to try.

Armand leaned back up to spread one hand over Louis’ belly, the other grasping his cock with more intent, and increased his pace. While Daniel was watching all this, unwilling to move in case he shattered this impossibly gorgeous moment, Louis’ hand was on his wrist before he knew what was happening, knocking his arm out from under him and dragging him back to his side with shocking strength. “Stay,” Louis growled, between panting breaths, and Daniel’s entire body fill with heat. Armand laughed. 

The arm that wasn’t clutching Daniel in a death-grip rested on the pillows over his head, but he wasn’t hanging onto the headboard anymore. Armand didn’t seem to mind. His hand was still spread wide on Louis’ belly, his silky voice murmuring words of praise as he jerked Louis off with perfect, fluid motions.

Armand had the best hands in the world, in Daniel’s opinion. A moment later, as if on cue, Louis ducked his chin sharply to the side. 

“There you go,” Daniel murmured, wrapping himself tightly around him. “Come on, darling. Show us.” As soon as Daniel was pressed up flush against Louis, his arm clamped around his torso, Louis turned his face into Daniel’s neck and came with a half-swallowed cry, spilling into Armand’s hand and over his own trembling belly.

Daniel’s eyes were glued to Armand, who’d threaded one arm around Louis’ knee, keeping Louis’ leg hooked around him. Armand leaned forward, pressing his tongue to a streak of glistening white cum in the crease above Louis’ belly button, lapping it up with a contented sound.

Louis groaned, and Armand’s face lit up with a lazy smile, dipping briefly to nuzzle Louis’ still-twitching cock. He placed a tiny lick at the tip, his free hand clamped hard to Louis’ hip to keep him still.

If they’d shot up with the syringes in Louis’ jacket earlier, Armand would already be fucking him, Daniel had no doubt. 

This theory was confirmed when Armand, still laying broad stripes across Louis’ belly and humming low in his throat, drug his sticky-wet fingers down, down between Louis’ thighs, Louis’ knees pressing a bit closer to his own shoulders until he was nearly bent in two. Louis watched Armand the entire time with a drugged expression, his chest swelling with a sleeper’s breath when Armand finally touched him. His spent dick twitched in the sticky mess on his belly. Armand’s fingers made a slow, languorous circle, and his eyes lifted to meet Louis’. 

The hair stood up on the back of Daniel’s neck. Oh shit.

They were going to fuck. They were going to find a way to do it. In a minute they were going to tear the syringes out of Louis’ coat, possibly with their teeth. Normally, Daniel wouldn’t protest. But it was too soon -- even  _ he _ knew that. And another, possibly more important factor, confirmed with a glance toward the window: there wasn’t time.

“Boss,” Daniel said, his voice having no effect as Armand’s fingers worked in smaller, more purposeful circles. He’d sat back up, and his eyes were locked onto Louis’ face with that tender, if deadly serious, expression. Below him, Louis’ chest was rising and falling in a familiar rhythm, his lips parted, his dick already stirring back to life.

Daniel put his hand on Armand’s arm. “It’s almost morning.” Daniel could hardly get the words out, for the pain they caused him. He had no choice. Someone had to look out for them. 

Armand finally broke his gaze with Louis, taking a breath and shifting his eyes away with obvious effort. Louis covered his face with his forearm, his legs lowering shakily to the covers as Armand moved out from between them. 

“Besides,” Daniel continued carefully, his eyes fastened to the window. “There’s some guy standing out in the woods.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience with my sporadic updates! And this cliffhanger. 
> 
> LOL. This cliffhanger.
> 
> Why can't they just get some privacy? (Oh, 'cause Lestat.) (The guy in the woods is not Lestat.)
> 
> Also, if I messed up any character stuff, just drop me a line and I'll try to fix it. Too many things happen in these books, I can't keep track. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> xx


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel confronts their stalker. 
> 
> Louis and Daniel attempt to sleep in, with mixed results. Angst. Sex. You know. Vampire stuff. (More talking and thinking about sex, probably, than actual sex. Along those lines -- check out my notes for further discussion of the frot theory portion of this fanfic!)
> 
> This chapter also contains Lestat/Louis moments (which I salvaged from an old, failed fic and reworked from a different perspective -- hurray!).
> 
> ***
> 
> You guys. Thanks for reading, and for being so kind and welcoming! It's kind of weird posting updates during a bit of a VC fanfic drought, especially when I'm not an active member of the fanbase outside of AO3 (because I'm super obsessive and it's all I'd be doing; maybe you can tell because I've edited this summary like 5 times) -- but everyone's been so nice, and it makes me feel things in my heart. So thank you for that. And thanks so much to starshine_shimmyshufflesmile for all your encouragement and excellent Armand meta!!
> 
> I'm a little embarrassed to say so, but I truly have been pouring my weird, horny little soul into this fic, and it makes me so happy to hear that maybe your weird, horny little souls like it, too.
> 
> xx

Cyril was leaning against a tree, cradling a scruffy ginger cat to his chest. “Shhh,” he was saying to the poor thing, ignoring Daniel as he approached from the edge of the clearing. Cyril -- a huge, foreboding, leather-clad creature, like the enforcer in some suspiciously photogenic biker gang -- only went on trying to soothe the little animal with clumsy strokes of his giant hand while the cat’s squirming became increasingly frantic.

“I don’t think it likes you,” Daniel said.

Cyril’s eyes fixed on him with real interest when he looked up, and for a moment Daniel regretted going out alone.

Once Daniel recognized the hulking figure standing out in the trees, he’d dressed quickly, insisting that _he_ should be the one to go confront their uninvited visitor. Young, weak, generally considered harmless at best, a fuck-up at worst; the closest thing to a neutral party among them -- he was the perfect candidate. Plus, he’d developed a bit of a rapport with Cyril (he hadn’t, unless being kicked out of the castle counted; that was a lie).

To his surprise, they hadn’t tried to stop him, only numbly gathering their clothes, not really looking at him or each other, still sticky and smelling of sex. Though when Louis ducked into the bathroom to wash up, Armand went to Daniel and rose on tiptoe to press a kiss to his lips, saying, “Don’t guard your thoughts, love. It will only make him suspicious.” Tasting of Louis, making Daniel dizzy with recent memories. “You have nothing to hide.”

Mainly, they hadn’t stopped him because Cyril wasn’t necessarily a threat. Not if Lestat had any sense.  
  
“You again,” Cyril drawled, his eyes almost warm. “I thought the little one would come out.” He finally let the cat slip from his arms, and it bolted into the undergrowth.

“I’m not thrilled to see you either, asshole.” There went the pretense of diplomacy.

Cyril chuckled. “Young one. It’s late, you must be very tired.” He dusted his coat as if he were preparing to go. “No need to worry. I’m just here to make my presence known, and see to it that everyone’s where they’re supposed to be when the time comes.”

Meaning, Daniel supposed: Louis back at the castle; Daniel and Armand, nowhere near.

“You followed him?” Daniel asked quietly. Louis hadn’t told him how he’d gotten there, only that he’d made his own way.

“I would have requested the boss let me guard him, anyway,” Cyril said, shrugging off Daniel’s question, “with the way things are going.”

“Louis can take care of himself.”

Cyril muttered something, peeling a strip of bark from the tree with his thumb -- then apparently thinking better of it and trying to smooth it back into place. “You don’t know a goddamn thing, it’s amazing … Not everyone’s happy with the Court, is what I meant. That one in there, your maker -- he has enemies, too. You know that, right? The problem with you people is that you don’t think about these things. You act like there’s nothing better to do … ”

Daniel let his mouth stretch into a sharp smile. “Are you trash-talking your boss?”

“No. I’m protecting him,” Cyril said seriously, focusing his gaze on Daniel again. “I’m protecting _you_.”

“Seems like you’re spying on us.”

Cyril smirked. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t care what you’re doing. I’m not _interested_ .”  
  
“Lestat, then.”  
  
The strip of bark had come unpeeled once more. Cyril eyed the exposed wood with a wince, sighing. “What about him?”

“He doesn’t want you reporting back to him?”

“Why would he want that?” Cyril asked in a contemptuous, stagy voice. Daniel took a moment to consider it. Would _he_ want that? No. But he wasn’t--

“You don’t _think_.” Cyril took a step forward, jabbing a finger to his own temple. “I’d rather spend my time monitoring that cat than be stuck out here watching you, believe me.”

“You like that thing, don’t you?”

“I like animals,” Cyril said disdainfully. “They’re smart. They know their place.”

“Fuck you.”

Cyril’s eyebrows shot up as the words left Daniel’s mouth. For a moment they stood regarding each other in shocked silence; it was all too obvious Daniel had spoken without thinking, but he tried to school his features into an expression of flat, faintly bored hostility.

He’d gotten away with calling Cyril an asshole, but this … Cyril wasn’t paying attention to the tree anymore. He wasn’t messing with his coat. He was looking directly at Daniel, straight through him, a stony look overtaking his wide, formally expressive face.  

Shit.

Daniel squared up, stupidly, uselessly -- the wild, reckless anger that had caught him unawares and made him snap at this monstrous “bodyguard” still coursing through him. Good. He could use it. Use it to break his hands on Cyril’s marble fucking face before getting his brains spread across the forest floor. Though he was just as likely to pass out on his feet before that happened. Dawn was coming; every bone in his body was screaming at him to get somewhere dark, somewhere safe.

Cyril took a step toward him.

“Cyril.” Louis’ voice, little more than a whisper, carried across the clearing. It wasn’t a reprimand, he was simply saying the man’s name -- but Daniel watched in amazement as the fucker suddenly reddened and ducked his head.

Louis was dressed in what he’d been wearing earlier, his hair had been smoothed, and any sign of flush had burned away from his cheeks. (Daniel wondered distantly how was it possible that neither of them -- especially Cyril -- had sensed his approach.)

“It’s late,” Louis said, coming up beside Daniel. Not conspicuously protective, but Daniel felt himself relax a little anyway. “You have somewhere to rest?”

Cyril nodded. He looked apologetic. His entire act had dropped. “I’m going there now, sorry to bother you, Louis.” He hadn’t said “Sir,” but he hadn’t needed to, his huge head lowered deferentially.

_What the fuck?_

Daniel noticed a distant look in Louis’ eyes, and his voice was a little too even, a little too modulated when he said to him, “I’ll be inside soon, if you’ll please --” Louis’ gaze turned again to Cyril. “Please wait for me there, Daniel.”

Daniel left without a word, glancing back to see Cyril looking positively ashamed, hunching his shoulders before the younger, weaker vampire. “I was only going to take him inside,” Cyril was saying. Then Louis’ soft voice. Maybe Daniel had fallen asleep back there in the meadow and he was dreaming all this. His limbs were so heavy. He licked his lips as his trudged blindly through the brush, tasting Armand, tasting Louis.

 

It’s always amazing to wake up in a warm bed, not a coffin, but a bed that at least feels warm, even if maybe it’s psychological, or at best, stolen -- next to someone. But to wake up between two someones, two monsters like yourself -- things that breathed, even if they didn’t have to, and radiated _presence_ , if not heat -- is really very nice, nicer than it sounds.

He knew who was who without having to open his eyes, and he knew where he was, wrapped in crisp white sheets in a cocoon of white curtains on the ground floor of the farmhouse, even if he didn’t remember how he’d gotten there. The last thing he could remember was sitting on the steps next to Armand, waiting for Louis, and looking up to count only five stars in the sky. Armand’s arm tightened around his waist. He could feel the clothed, compact form curled against his back; he wriggled back against it, just a little, Armand’s steady heartbeat thrumming into his body. His hand was on Louis’ arm. (That now-familiar, heady scent drifting from Louis’ skin; the infusions still hadn’t worn off, then, Daniel thought happily).

Armand would be antsy to move. He wasn’t one for lazing in bed first thing in the evening, preferring to save that for later. Even though this was a special occasion. Especially since this was a special occasion. Armand would feel the overwhelming urge to retreat, he knew.

“A little longer?” Daniel murmured.  

Louis’ cool breath touched his cheek. “I’ll stay,” Louis said, to him or Armand.

The warmth -- the illusion of warmth; the heartbeat -- left his back. The bed shifted.

Daniel drifted into a light, mortal slumber.

 

_“Stop, cheri,” Lestat said, a little hoarsely. “Stop a moment.”_

_He could hear Lestat getting up from the place he’d been sitting and cross the floor, to stand behind him. Cool fingertips pressed into his flanks and he didn’t say anything more, and he, Louis, didn’t dare turn his head, bent over the desk as he was, his knee hiked up on the armrest of the chair in which Lestat usually stationed himself to go over what he’d written for the night in the gray, quiet hours just before dawn._

_The man who always had so much to say had fallen eerily silent. It was no comfort to know the silence meant looking._

_Looking, and looking, at Louis’ fingers, perhaps, stilled within his body, or the little divots his own grip was making in the tender skin above his hips._

_After a moment, Lestat said, in a strangely mournful tone, “You can move again, my love.”_

_He started to, and as he did, Lestat slipped his index finger in alongside Louis’._

_Louis knew he’d made a surprised little sound, the kind of sound Lestat loved -- something that spoke to an imagined innocence he still found thrilling after everything he’d gotten Louis to do. After what Louis had just been doing, for him._

_At the thought of it, shame slithered through and it was jarring how quickly the pleasure disappeared, and he was removed from his body, watching everything from a frozen, windswept place deep inside his mind._

_He needed to change it, quickly. He’d get tense; he might flinch, or worse. Lestat would misunderstand. And then there’d be no fixing it._

_It was easy to -- if not relax -- go limp, and watch himself drift like a small and weightless thing, far from the circuit of anxious admonishments he thought of as his mind, drifting back inside the borders of his body again. Hollow at first, but soon --_

_When the final border collapsed, the pleasure hit him harder than before; he couldn’t think if he wanted to. He let himself sigh into the lazy press of fingers inside his body. Soon, if he cooperated, he’d get what he wanted: Lestat’s skin against his, no space between them, no space for anything that wasn’t the bliss and rightness of being utterly possessed._

_“If I could have given this to you--” Lestat was saying, more or less to himself. “If I could have given this to you, back then--”_

_The words broke through, just barely. He meant to shoot a look over his shoulder. A warning._

_But that meant seeing him -- his radiant face and his broad shoulders and his eyes, most of all._

_Louis dropped his head._

_And Lestat -- to punish him for turning away, or to reward him for his weakness -- wrapped his hand around his cock. Louis felt the muscles in his shoulders jumping, heard his own voice gain a pleading note._

_Lestat didn’t seem to pay him any mind. If anything, his touch turned ever so slightly more indifferent, like his voice, when he said, with dull certainty, “You would have stayed.”_

_Louis’ hips jolted, seeking a rhythm. The words meant nothing to him; they hung there, unexamined, while his body moved restlessly under Lestat’s cold touch, unanchored, unheld -- Lestat’s hands on him, but not_ enough _. “Please,” he said._

_Lestat was stroking Louis’ cock absently, focusing his efforts elsewhere. Inside._

_Such a strange feeling, being opened up like this. The slide of his fingers against Lestat’s._

Hurts _._

_Shaking again._

_“My beautiful one.”_

_At the sound of his voice, gentle and strange, Louis tilted his head to watch him from below._

_“My mate.”_

_Those broad lips pressed together, then parted. It was clear that Lestat was toying with the idea of saying more, enjoying the thrill of shaping the words in his mind. The unspoken words seared just the same. Louis turned away. His chin dropped to his chest._

_“Don’t come, Louis,” murmured the tender voice, just as a powerful hand closed around the hair at the base of his skull._

_Louis heard himself sob._

_“Keep your fingers inside.”_

_Then he was pulling Louis away from the desk, turning him, pushing him down to kneel in front of him._

 

Daniel opened his eyes. Louis was lying there next to him, on his belly, dozing peacefully under a single sheet pooled around his waist. Daniel’s hand was still on his arm. That is to say, he saw his own hand resting there, and felt Louis’ flesh under his palm, and he also saw, and felt --

_Heavy cock filling his throat. Hands in his hair. His own fingers, the ones that weren’t busy dutifully working himself open, skittering over the pale golden hairs of Lestat’s thigh. “Get on the bed.” No one in front of him anymore. His fingers slid out drunkenly, and he nearly fell forward -- and then a smooth, broad hand was gripping his arm, hauling him up. “On the bed, cheri.”_

Daniel fought his way back to himself, closed his mind, just as Louis huffed in his sleep and shifted under the covers.

Their minds must have searched each other out while their bodies lay side by side in mortal sleep, linking as easily and innocently as interlaced fingers, and he’d been pulled into Louis’ dream. A vivid dream, in the way that only vampire dreams could be vivid. He’d seen, he’d _been_ , Louis. He’d felt what Louis felt.

Now, it was as if he’d been shoved back into the wrong body; he couldn’t figure out how to move his legs; and even though it _couldn’t be_ \-- it was impossible -- he was about two seconds away from coming.

 _His entire body caught in a sigh, his blood revolving sweetly in his veins, turning over on itself._ _He could only clutch at Lestat’s shoulders, arc his chest to close the space between them._

_“Don’t you love being filled up by me? Isn’t it all you ever want?”_

_He nodded against the pillow, tears stinging his eyes._

_“Oh, my little liar. You’re so sweet like this.” His palm rested on Louis’ throat, pressed down. “Should I let you come?”_

_Louis brought his hands to Lestat’s and stroked the fingers that encircled his neck. He shook his head._

_Lestat watched him for a moment. He released Louis’ throat, bringing his fingers up to touch his cheek. Louis was vaguely aware he was gazing up at him through dreamy, half-lidded eyes, wetness on his face, his whole being vibrating with adoration and perfect happiness._

_Lestat suddenly broke into a laugh. “You’re fucked out of your mind, cheri.” But he smiled, and continued rocking into Louis with the same, agonizing slowness, and Louis sighed and pulled one of Lestat’s fingers into his mouth._

Jesus Christ. _Seal your goddamn mind, Molloy_ , Daniel hissed at himself -- though he was sure he’d taken care to create a barrier between their thoughts. He shut his eyes, as if that would help, and willed himself not to dip into the sacred pond that was Louis’ unguarded thoughts.

No. Fuck. That’s not going to work ... Focus on the here and now. Open your eyes. Look at Louis, sprawled on his belly with one pale arm stretched out and his dark hair falling over his face. Look at the way the sheet drapes over the graceful lines of his body. Look at his impossible eyelashes. Nothing overtly lascivious there; nothing to hint at the things that went on inside his slumbering mind. Yet under the sheet, Daniel knew, Louis lay hard and dripping, his erection trapped cruelly between the mattress and his own cool skin. Just beside him. Just there.

He moved his hand reflexively on Louis’ arm.

Louis stretched and shifted again. After a few moments, his breathing changed. Then he sighed. Not a sigh of contentment, or need, or simple disappointment. Daniel thought he recognized it -- the near-groan he used to make when coming to in a filthy bed alone and sore and hungover, and still perversely capable of producing morning wood as if he still were a normal twenty-something-year-old with something to look forward to.

Louis was, in a tenuous sense, a young man in his twenties. But he’d never been normal, or “ordinary” (despite his claims to the contrary), and the sheets were crisp and fresh. And he would have plenty to look forward to, if Daniel had his way.

“Daniel,” Louis said, after a moment. His eyes were still closed, but he smiled.

“Hi, darling.” Daniel leaned in to kiss Louis’ cheek, drifting down to nuzzle his neck, his shoulder. He paused there a few beats, debating.

“What is it?” Louis’ eyes were open now, watching him.  
  
“Nothing,” Daniel assured him, hearing the lack of conviction in his voice. He placed another kiss to Louis’ shoulder, feeling the muscles tense under his lips. “Nothing, really ... I had a weird dream.”

Louis rolled onto his side, facing Daniel with a strange expression. He looked resigned as he lay there, ready for something -- a fight? His face was pale.

Daniel realized something, looking at him. “It was a memory,” Daniel said, feeling the truth of it as the words slipped from his mouth.

“I won’t let it happen again. I don’t know how it happened, but--”

Daniel reached out and touched Louis’ hip under the sheet.

Louis grimaced. Daniel’s hand stopped, poised along the curve of Louis’ oblique. He hadn’t meant to touch him. Part of his mind, he was sure, was still tangled with Louis’. Yes, he reminded himself, I was Louis. _I was you_ , he thought reverently, his heart swelling with a strange wonder that blotted out the rather troubling circumstances of the dream ( _memory_ ). Perhaps he was only trying to justify his reaching out unthinkingly as if Louis’ sensitized skin were his own, driven by the certain knowledge that Louis was lying there achingly hard and wearing nothing at all below the single sheet that covered them both. His fangs ached. He wet his lips. “I was you. I felt what you felt. That’s how I know--” and then his fingers left Louis’ hip, ghosting over his cock -- yes, he was hard, God he was _lovely_ \-- “Let me ... help you, Louis. Please.”

Louis said nothing, but didn’t move away as Daniel kissed his temple, wriggled closer. Typical. Daniel didn’t move either. After a moment Louis’ arm found its way around  him, slipping under the sheets to snake tentatively around the small of his back.

Daniel tried hard, always, with limited success, not to fetishize the quality in Louis that one might call sweet, or demure, or even -- never, never out-loud -- cute. He tried never to use any of the words the others did, for Louis wasn’t _exactly_ prim, or _only_ yielding, or _truly_ weak. (These words made it easier to do what one wanted with him, because he was _made_ to be desired and treasured and protected and, ultimately, inevitably, owned. Hurt. Consumed.) And yet -- when he pressed his body along the length of Louis’ cock, and Louis squeaked out a breathy little, “Oh,” Daniel felt his fangs meet the edge of his lip.

“But,” Louis murmured, seemingly oblivious to the shift in the air (or maybe not). “You’re not angry?”

Daniel took a deep breath, fighting back the sudden swell of hunger that left his mind in a fog. Angry? “No.”

Oh, right. The dream.

Well, it had been more than a dream; it had _happened_. And it had involved someone Daniel would rather not think about just now. And Louis had been aroused nearly to orgasm by the mere memory of this man while lying right next to Daniel, only hours after Daniel had held his trembling form while their mutual lover gave him the hand-job of his life. But no, he realized, thinking about it -- he wasn’t angry. Not at Louis. Not even at Lestat, who had infiltrated their love-nest so insidiously, without even trying -- how could he be, fused tightly to Louis’ consciousness as he’d been? “No,” Daniel said again.

Louis closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath as Daniel let his body drift against him, loving the drag of Louis’ cock against his skin. To be perfectly honest, his own dick was getting difficult to ignore. It wasn’t hard, of course, only firm and deliciously heavy, but that didn’t stop him from lining it up with Louis’ just to see how it would feel, and working it with his hand from the base of Louis’ cock to the tip and back again. And back again.

“If you wait,” Louis said, panting, his hands alighting on his shoulders. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Daniel stopped what he was doing, reluctantly, to lock an arm around him. “Why?”    
  
“The -- Daniel, my coat.”

“I don’t need it.”

Louis bit his lip. “I thought you liked ... what happened.”

It took Daniel a moment to understand. Maybe Louis had sensed his brief surge of predatory thoughts, after all. “No,” he said finally. “No, that’s not -- I told you. I was _you_ . What I liked was how much you were enjoying it.” And it was true. It was Louis’ pleasure he’d responded to, in the dream (or, let’s be honest, the extremely vivid, undoubtedly cherished, all-too recent memory). “Not the acts -- not the specific acts.”

He pressed his cock to Louis’ once more, because he liked it there, and wrapped his hand around them both; then, because he couldn’t resist, he gave them a few light pumps. “Daniel …  What--” Louis gasped, eyes closed, brows pinched together in frustration.

“We don’t have to do anything.”

Louis looked at him, openly confused.

“I mean, we don’t have to do _that_.”

He never had, for the longest time. He’d been in a year-long relationship with a guy and never did it, their bodies finding other ways to love one another, finding other acts -- not in simulation, but for their own sake. He released Louis’ cock, fitting it along the curve of muscle above his hip. The tops of his feet hooked under Louis soles’; he bounced him up against him.

Louis went pink. There it was. No blush for so long, and now, at some harmless frottage. Possibly it was the implication. (Louis had always shied away from the topic of his fucking Daniel, for whatever reason.)

“Or, I can use my mouth,” Daniel said, conversationally. “I know you like that.”

Louis had lowered his face. He laughed now -- the wrong kind of laugh; a hard, brittle sound -- and Daniel froze.

“I’m sorry, I’m only ...” Louis smiled. “The infusion was meant to have worn off by now. It seems it may be with me forever. Perhaps this is my new state.”

Daniel could only stare for a moment, caught unawares.

“I’m always doing this to you, aren’t I?” Louis said. “Forgive me.”

“Is it different than when you were human?” Daniel asked carefully. “Do you want it more, or …?”

“The same. I’m just as I was,” he said with that small, despairing smile, a shade darker.

“In that case, I wish I’d known you,” Daniel said, kissing Louis’ brow. The idea of them both, mortal. Preferably living in the time they occupied now -- they would have fit together so well, in all ways.

“I’m so much work for you,” Louis said tiredly. But Daniel could feel his dick pulsing against his thigh.

He didn’t know how to answer such an absurd statement. “It’s … no problem, Louis -- really. Let me help you. You know how I like to.” He dipped his face to Louis’ hair, and brought his fingers back to his cock. “You need it. You’re uh--” he said, squeezing approvingly, “ _ridiculously hard_ , lovely. And I don’t blame you.”

Louis tensed -- just a little, but Daniel noticed.

“I told you, I was _you_. And speaking for you, and myself also, I don’t blame you.” He rolled against him.

Louis’ eyes glazed over. “You--”

“I’m not making it easy for you, I know. Remind you of anyone?” _Louis, pressed up against him in Daniel’s shitty old apartment, cold and alien and absolutely irresistible with his fangs peeking out between his parted lips and his long, slender hands on Daniel’s body. “I’m not so different from you, in this way, Daniel.” His shocking eagerness. His obvious pleasure._ “You must have loved torturing me. You were so --”

Louis ducked his head. “I’m meant to rut against you, then?” Louis said, still flushing. “Like an animal?”

“That’s the idea,” Daniel smiled, ignoring the face Louis was making. “Or --” He started sliding his body down, leaving a trail of wet kisses down Louis’ chest. “I can --”  
  
“No,” Louis said, clasping him reflexively. “Please … ”

He knew. He’d been inside Louis’ mind, after all. Experienced first-hand the desire to be covered and contained, anchored by the weight of another body bearing down on his -- crushing him if necessary, it didn’t matter. And he remembered how Louis had gripped him close the night before, only coming for them once Daniel was tucked firmly against him with his arm slung over his chest.

“Listen,” Daniel said, shifting even closer. “If you don’t like this, just say.” And guided Louis’ cock into the space between his thighs, holding himself up and out of the way. Louis frowned, but let Daniel kiss him and draw Louis’ leg over his own.

“Okay?” Daniel asked.

“Yes.” Louis put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder, and tucked his head against his chest.

Daniel smiled, nosing into his hair and crossing his legs at the ankle, squeezing lightly. He felt the throb of Louis’ cock -- but otherwise, nothing. Louis lay still and tense against him.

“Louis,” Daniel said, “you have to move.” When he didn’t answer, Daniel prompted, “Won’t you move, darling?”

“It’ll be better for you, with -- with the --” he was casting his eyes in the direction of his abandoned coat.

“I’m absolutely fine,” Daniel said, rolling against Louis as slowly as he could, glorying in the silky glide of Louis’ cock between his thighs. “You feel wonderful. I like you there. Please move.” He grasped Louis’ hip, undulating against him as best he could, drawing his thighs back and forth over that heavy, dripping shaft he’d held in his mouth so many times, but never like this. And yes, Louis’ tip was slick already, from the dream -- and from Daniel, too. Daniel felt a tender little swell of gratitude. _I get to do this,_ he thought, kissing the crown of Louis’ head; and he never prayed, but now his thoughts turned just that solemn and pleading. _Only let me keep doing it, and I’ll never stop; please let him love it, let him know --_

Louis’ fingers dug into his arm. His face was pressed to the hollow at the base of his neck, and Daniel could feel his soft, panting breaths. Daniel caressed his hip, feeling it shudder and flex as Louis started, finally to thrust.

Louis was already so close, had been close now for so long, he didn’t stand much of a chance -- it was only a matter of time before his body took over. As it did, and his thrusts became less careful, less gentle, Louis’ hand ran slowly over Daniel’s shoulders, over his back, over the swell of his ass and back up, at last clamping resolutely to Daniel’s hip as his ankles locked around his shin, holding him in place while his cock rode the narrow channel between Daniel’s thighs. Daniel squeezed him back to show him, yes, I love this, I love the way we fit together, darling, don’t stop.

Louis tilted his hips, angling himself up behind the base of Daniel’s balls -- a magical place truly; whatever that fucking nerve is called --- it’s glorious.

“Louis -- fuck --”

Louis’ eyes flashed up at him nervously. “Is that --?”

“Yeah,” Daniel growled, bucking against him.

Daniel’s cock had notched itself along Louis’ belly. Louis reached between them to stroke it, moaning, making Daniel wish for a moment he’d just used the fucking syringe (why be hero?), coming up to kiss him in that same, easy, rocking movement, the points of their nipples grazing, their limbs tangling and re-tangling with a languid, unhurried hunger. As close as two bodies could be. Not different, not essentially different, from --

“Daniel,” Louis panted. “Daniel -- are you --?”

“Babe,” Daniel breathed hazily, and kissed him. He rolled his spine, let his head fall back. He felt Louis’ eyes fastened to him. To his neck. _You’re fucking me, darling,_ Daniel thought with something like religious awe. _I love you fucking me._

Maybe Louis heard, maybe he didn’t, but he buried his face against Daniel’s chest with a soft growl, and left a hard, bloodless bite on Daniel’s collarbone.

Had Louis never done this? Never lined his body up with someone else’s and moved, just for the feel of it? Was it always one body covering another -- a top and a bottom, and all that, forever and always? But that was all just for show; people didn’t actually fuck that way. They didn’t have relationships that way. Did they? It’s not as if Daniel _knew_ , exactly; his own, numerous experiences (once Armand entered the picture): choreographed and loveless, his actual lover an actual monster. But he doubted those categories -- top/bottom, fucker/fuckee -- meant very much to two or three people tangled together, wrapped up in each other in every possible way, deeply, messily devoted to their shared pleasure. Figuring things out.

Figuring things out was his favorite part. Who knew what they would be capable of in the space of their eternity together.

“Can you fly, babe?”  
  
“What?”

Daniel stroked Louis’ back apologetically. “Never mind. Just--”

“Why?” Louis bit out, pressing his forehead hard to Daniel’s chest.

“I was wondering if you could fuck me, like, in a cloud.”

“ _What?_ ” Louis laughed breathlessly.

“It’s -- I just want to see -- and Armand won’t --”

“Daniel,” Louis groaned. “Please. Be quiet.”

Louis was fucking into Daniel’s thighs now in long, rolling thrusts, barely withdrawing, his breaths turning shaky. A few more stuttering thrusts, and he came hard between Daniel’s legs.

He lay warm and damp against Daniel’s own slick skin, his lungs still working frantically. Then he levered himself up and pulled Daniel’s face to his neck.  

Daniel didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t. Spurts of hot, rich blood hit the roof of his mouth before he even realized he was biting down, and he let it flood his throat, groaning. He needed it. And, he realized, _Louis_ needed it, the way Daniel had, back when he was a mortal man losing himself inside Louis in perfect, helpless bliss -- and yes, it was perfect, but it was never _finished_ until Louis’ fangs broke the skin of his wrist, his neck, his thigh. And that’s what he saw in Louis’ blood -- memories of those nights spent tangled together in Daniel’s messy bed, fucking by the amber light from the street, Louis slipping off to his coffin every morning later than he’d ever dared only to dream about it by day, waking with his hands on his own body, burning with sweet, uncomplicated want for _Daniel_ and Daniel’s long-legged gait crossing the room and Daniel’s violet eyes on him and Daniel’s cum coating his insides, wanted to be good for Daniel, so Daniel would do it again.

 _When I fuck you, you’re mine_ , Armand’s love had said to him, the words striking in Louis a deep sense of rightness; he would have nodded along if Daniel’s hand hadn’t been gripping his hair so tightly, if Daniel’s fingers, working inside him, hadn’t melted him so totally. _I’m already yours,_ he might have said. _I’m yours because you want me._ He’d seen the things Daniel thought about -- pinning him down to the interview table in that lonely little room, Louis falling apart under him, for him. _I don’t want to hurt you_ , Daniel had said, too.

He’d felt only purest relief when that lovely boy finally dragged him off to his bedroom, that first time, and told him what to do.

And Daniel had been so kind, with a dead boy’s amulet around his neck, so eager to please. It felt good, the things he did to him. Daniel’s thin, alcohol-steeped blood flooded his brain so sweetly.

Louis’ fault, all of it; his carelessness. His lust. And now--

Through his haze, Daniel could feel Louis’ hands on him, stroking his cock. Already transmitting, through the blood, _need him hard, need him to -- why won’t he --?_

“Louis?” Daniel mouthed against his neck, licking the wound he’d left there. “Darling. What do you need?”

 _Empty_.

“You’re not --” He stopped himself, grimacing. He’d said it before, he realized with an unpleasant shock.

Daniel heard a rustling sound, and for a moment wondered if some animal -- maybe that little cat from the woods -- had gotten in the house somehow. The curtains were still drawn around the bed. He pulled them aside. Louis’ coat, with the syringes inside, was sitting by the bed like a little pet. Chilled, Daniel let the curtain fall back into place.

“But you came, and I -- Louis?”

Louis was sliding down Daniel’s body. He took him into his mouth without preamble, on a mission; Daniel moaned and pushed into the tight seal of Louis' lips -- Louis' throat fluttering around him in encouragement -- before managing to clear his head enough to put his hands on tense shoulders and whisper, “Louis, love. Stop.” Louis resisted only a moment before letting him pull him away and back up. Daniel pressed him to his chest. “The night is young, no need to rush. And,” he began haltingly, “you know I always want to, you know that, and that I -- ”

“Yes,” Louis said quietly. “I understand.” He extracted himself from Daniel’s arms and padded to the bathroom. Daniel could hear water running. He lay there stunned, wondering, How can I fix this? What just happened? In a moment, Louis returned with a towel, and Daniel tried a cautious smile.

“Oh, babe, that’s not going to cut it.” He got up, showing Louis the state of his thighs.

Louis nodded, dismayed. _Don’t laugh at him._ But he looked so forlorn, staring at the mess he’d made. And it was just a little cum, nothing that wouldn’t wash away.

“I’ll need a shower, don’t you think?” he said, walking up to Louis and gathering him into a loose embrace. He was about to ask him to join him when Louis stepped back with a curt nod, murmuring, “I’ll change the sheets. And I need to find where Armand’s put my clothes.”

“You can borrow mine.” He had to admit he didn’t hate that idea.  
  
“Thank you,” Louis said, folding his arms across his chest, “but I meant to say that I should have a trunk stored away here somewhere. I just have to find it.”

Of course he did. Wait a minute-- “Where the hell is Armand?” It hit him suddenly that Armand had been gone a while, that Cyril was still out there, and who knows how the two of them felt about each other or what might happen if Armand’s temper came out --

“He’s safe,” Louis said. “Cyril won’t hurt him.” Louis lowered his eyes and looked to the side, going perfectly still -- _listening_ , Daniel realized. “They’re talking,” he said, after a moment.  
  
“About _what_?”

“You fell asleep before I could tell you ... ” Louis kissed him lightly, smiling. _Good, everything was going back to normal, it was going to be alright_. “Lestat’s ordering rooms to be built for Armand at the chateau --”

“What?”

“--and Cyril’s meant to ask him about them.” Louis smile turned amused. “So long as he’s here.”

Daniel wanted to ask a question, but there were simply too many.

“He wants him closeby, for the council. If Armand agrees.” Louis paused, looking at his face. “He considers Armand a friend, mon amour,” Louis said, stepping forward and kissing him again. _Mon amour._ “Surely you know that.”

“Uh--”

But Louis had already turned away. “There’s time to discuss it later,” he said, gently but with a tone of finality, going to the bureau and opening a drawer. “Have you moved the linens? They’re not here.”

“No.”

“I’ll find them.”

He was still hurt, Daniel could see it in the stiff, protective way he held his body -- though seemingly unaffected by his nudity -- and hesitated there a moment. Louis ignored him, going to the bed to strip the sheets. Daniel wanted to thank him for doing that, or to ask him if he was alright, but he finally gave up and slunk off to the bathroom before he made things any worse.

 

When Daniel drew the curtain aside to step out of the shower, Armand was sitting on the lid of the toilet seat, waiting for him.

“You look nice,” Daniel said, trying to shake off the sense that it was 1982 and his diminutive stalker-boyfriend-incubus was about to pour coffee down his throat and drag him off to a boxing match or a university lecture on honeybees. Anyway, he was telling the truth -- Armand had dressed with care, and his auburn curls were pushed back from his round, unsmiling face.

Armand handed him a towel and watched him dry off, his eyes wide and thoughtful, raising his small white hand to pull the towel away before Daniel was quite done. He stood in front of him. “Let’s go out tonight,” he said. Then Daniel felt a sharp pain in his right ass cheek.

“Christ! You goddamn -- !”

Armand shushed him, focusing on emptying the contents of the syringe into his muscle. But his eyes were glinting. “Oh, Daniel. How do you ever hope to see the inside of a cloud, saying such things to me?”

“You were never going to, you bastard,” he growled, hissing as Armand pulled out the needle. The wound stung a little. He rubbed at it, looking at Armand reproachfully.  

“I could fuck you,” Armand said carefully, tilting his head, “in the center of an exploding star, and it wouldn’t be enough for you.”

“What a ridiculous-- You’ve _never_ fucked me!” Daniel said, leaning forward to speak in an incredulous whisper.

Armand blinked his enormous eyes, speaking so slowly it was like Daniel could see the individual letters hanging in the air:  “Really.”  
  
“What are you doing coming in here and -- and --” He gestured at the syringe. “I didn’t ask for that! You should ask me!”

“Stop carrying on. It only hurts for a moment,” Armand said, eyeing the substantial needle of the syringe.

Daniel stared at him. “You did it?” he asked in a small voice.

Armand looked off at nothing, his head held unnaturally to the side. “I don’t feel anything yet,” he said, stroking his own neck absently; Daniel’s eyes followed the movement. “I’d like to be around mortals when it … happens. I think it will be interesting.”

Sure. Do it for the mortals. “The mortals changed your mind, huh.” Not Louis wrapping his lovely legs around you last night, no. But -- that wasn’t fair. It didn’t stop Daniel from sulking about it, though.

Armand was looking him over approvingly. “You did well, earlier, my love,” he said, stepping closer. He traced his fingertips over Daniel’s thighs, just long enough to make Daniel suck in a breath. Then he turned away, leaving Daniel leaning into the space he’d just vacated. “We’re going into town,” he said, in a soft, clipped voice. “Get dressed.”

“All of us?”  
  
“Yes.”

“Boss ... ”

Armand stopped in the doorway, light striking the edges of his hair, the curve of his face, the slightly rounded muscles of his shoulders. He looked like a painting, and it unnerved Daniel for a moment. (He’d never seen the painting that still survived, if Lestat was to be believed, and he never wanted to.)

“What is it, Daniel?”

 _I fucked up, didn’t I?_ Daniel wanted to say. _He doesn’t think he means anything to me unless I’m_ fucking _him, and nothing I do or say will ever change that._ He shook his head wretchedly, about to apologize and let Armand go on his way.

“Perhaps,” Armand said, turning to face him, “I can offer advice, my love?” As if he could still read his thoughts. “ ... Though it isn’t much, and you need not follow it.” He drifted back to stand before Daniel, taking his hand. “Give it time.” Daniel fixed his eyes on him blearily. “He knows how much you care for him. You’re not good at hiding such things.”

Armand leaned up to kiss his jaw, his eyes alight. So beautiful. Daniel couldn’t look at him.

When Armand turned to go, Daniel gripped his hand. “Wait,” he croaked.

“Yes?”

“It--” Daniel stammered. He took a breath. “It doesn’t have to be in a cloud.”  
  
Armand nodded seriously. “Alright, Daniel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last UPDATE: 5/22: Chapter 6 is taking a while because I'm not plotting any of this and even when I try nothing goes to plan, haha. But it's happening. I'm starting to hate it a little which means it's almost done. ;)
> 
> UPDATE: 4/20 (total coincidence): Dipped back in to make some minor edits. This chapter is a bit sloppy perhaps, but I hope you enjoyed it. As someone who doesn't smoke weed but often seems stoned to people, I feel qualified enough to recommend reading it high, if that's your thing. ;) Next chapter should be in a month, if all goes well. 
> 
> ***
> 
> Please allow this brief, yet not brief enough note on the frot session above: 
> 
> I’m going by the broadest definition of the term, provided best -- in my fairly extensive research, actually, yes -- by Brian Blanchfield in PROXIES. Also adapted some of his phrasing from “On Frottage,” as well as certain concepts (including a few specific things Daniel says and does, as well as the “impossible eyelashes” of the essay’s fantasy lover). There’s an early/edited-down version online, but I highly recommend the full essay from the book if you’re interested in hunting it down: https://nightboat.org/book/proxies/ . It offers some perspective and context you won’t find here, and is also tender, and deals with death/disease/identity as well as sex.
> 
> I should also note that the portions of the essay that inspired certain lines of this story involved what I would define as Blanchfield’s overall discussion of frottage, rather than personal, specific stories from his life -- then again, his narrative constantly shifts between the two, and of course it’s all personal. I’ve tried to navigate this as best I can, and while I don’t think I crossed a line (or I wouldn’t have posted it), I do think there’s a higher standard of responsibility to meet concerning a work such as this, and I’m (eternally) open to the possibility that I got it wrong. 
> 
> Anyway, I’ve spent so much energy working on such a short scene because the kinds of concepts Daniel is thinking about here will likely define how the dynamic develops moving forward. :D :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys go out for a night on the town. Daniel’s in a bad mood. Louis’ gone AWOL. Armand seems to be having an okay time, though.
> 
> You might want to settle in for this one. Lots of talking and reflection, and *no sex*, I should add. That's coming up in the next chapter. There are feelings, though. And longing. Pining. Snuggling. You know. 
> 
> Sorry this is a bit late. I had to chop the intended update into two parts; it was getting a little out of control and driving me crazy. The next bit should be up soon.

“Embrasse-moi,” the girl whispered to no one in particular. Kiss me. Even without her longing tugging at his veins, Daniel knew at least that much French. She was leaning against Armand’s shoulder, and Daniel was drawing gently from the vein behind her ear.

He felt Armand shifting her.

After a moment, his maker’s long, wavy hair brushed his jaw -- he could hear him begin to kiss the girl; just kiss her, that was all -- and Daniel saw her thin wrist flop in her lap. It triggered something in him. Her skin was clean, not grimy, and she was older by far than that other girl had been, and her hair was a different color; there was nothing about her that should have made him think of it -- but he drew back anyway.

The girl shivered and let her head fall back against the stone embankment along the deserted river walkway where they’d led her. Chatter and music rose from the bars behind them, but in front of them was nothing but dark river, dark trees.

Daniel nicked his lip and leaned in to drop his healing blood to her wounds, catching the excess with his finger.

Armand’s skin was flushed as he pulled away; he’d fed from her earlier. From her, and a boy before her, and someone else before that. Each of these poor addled souls, they’d healed, smoothed clothes and hair back into place, and returned to the riverside bars where they’d found them. No harm done.

Louis had parted ways with them immediately, though they’d journeyed over together just before midnight, ghosting through the woods toward the unsuspecting little village like a trio of actual storybook monsters. His companions’ luminous profiles and white hands flickered beside him, in front of him, disappeared and shuddered into view several yards ahead -- only to come up from behind him again, as if shepherding him along. It was strangely comforting. Like wolves must feel, loping along in their pack. Daniel wanted to feel comforted. He wanted to feel weightless, speeding effortlessly over the dewy earth like any spare, jagged thing built for a singular, unquestionable purpose; just another animal with fangs and claws and a beating heart that moved him. Yet, he couldn’t quite bullshit himself to the degree he used to, especially not tonight.

The stuff with Louis -- the “dream,” and then Louis’ strange, frantic appeals at the end -- began to needle at the edges of his thoughts, to worm their way in, no matter how many times his poor overstimulated brain tried to push it all away, until, finally, a general sense of wrongness settled over his entire body, localizing in his chest. Everything had seemed alright, or at least, like it was going to be -- but now that he was outside of the orbit of Louis’ arms, he wasn’t sure what to make of it.  

Even kneeling with Armand by the river -- sated and warm, his sharpened senses taking in the sound of  water (its memory, too -- every rock and fish and rotting thing it had passed over or enveloped on its way to them) -- Daniel couldn’t shake his unease. It didn’t help that Cyril was out there, somewhere, lurking in the shadowy periphery like some particularly large, annoying shark. Trailing with him, always, the presence of his boss, as if they could be allowed to forget him even for a second.

 _And_ it didn’t help that he could feel himself descending into Old Man mode that night, something that happened when he was exhausted and coming down from some overwhelming experience, and he reverted back into the person he’d been on his way to becoming when the lights went down on his shabby little world.   

Ann Peebles was playing down the street; he could hear it perfectly (and that should be a warning: who the fuck could identify, let alone have feelings about, an Ann Peebles song these days?). More importantly, he could hear that it wasn’t his favorite Ann Peebles song, which only reminded him of how great that other song was that wasn’t playing and how much he’d rather listen to that one instead. These were the kinds of problems he faced nowadays: Old Man problems (he _would_ be an old man by now, after all) heightened to the point of grotesqueness by vampiredom. Earlier, his perfect vision had honed in on minute fissures in the paint on the exterior of the farmhouse like it was something worth looking at -- and worse, he actually cared about it! He could practically see the little cracks on the insides of his eyelids. He wanted them gone.

Of course he had eternity, and he had money. He could order remodels on all their properties, Armand wouldn’t mind; he could track down the song he wanted easily -- could even afford a limited edition pressing for the record-player he didn’t have, maybe just throw it in a drawer somewhere until he had a chance to scour the internet for an appropriate high-end turntable as well.

But even an immortal has needs that seem immediate even if they aren’t, and thinking about deferring these desires -- until tomorrow, until next year, until several years from now -- deferring them indefinitely, because one _could_ , only sent Daniel into an immediate, panicky spiral. _I could do that anytime, I could do anything I want, so how does it mean a fucking thing?_

Holy shit, it’s just a song from the 70s, calm down. It’s a little peeling paint. It’s just a weird night out with your … people, one of whom is most definitely avoiding you after--after---God, how could he describe what happened, exactly? It was just sex.

 _It was just sex!_ he would say to Louis, if Louis were there. _It was just something I wanted to do with you, something I wanted you to have, and why couldn’t you just …_ Oh, goddamn it. He wasn’t sure anymore. He wasn’t sure if wanting something _for_ Louis wasn’t hopelessly tangled up with wanting something from him, after all.

And what if he’d given in? Let Louis push the needle into his thigh while Louis went on sucking him and kissing him in that disturbing, single-minded way, their minds still linked so that Daniel could know, all the while, how focused Louis was on his task where there should be nothing there but hazy satisfaction, and maybe, if Daniel were lucky, some tender swell of affection he could warm himself against. What if he’d fucked Louis then. What if he’d sensed, once it was over, the confirmation of his darkest suspicions: that haze finally finding Louis whether he’d come or not, a lightness in his chest that should have been there earlier, and Louis rolling finally into Daniel’s arms, content to drowse and accept his kisses now that Daniel was satisfied in this particular way and things were as they should be.

Maybe he should jump in the river and let it carry him out of this entire goddamned country. Maybe he should go back to reminiscing about soul songs from his mortal youth. Maybe he should paint the fucking house. But there was no place he could go, no pointless activity he could lose himself in, nothing he could _do_ that would lead to anything other than yet another sundown, yet another night, and one after that -- an endless stream of existence in which to confront these larger, seemingly eternal problems. So, yeah, the river was looking pretty good.

After depositing the girl -- dazed, but content, and only barely victimized -- back into the restaurant where her friends were still waiting for her, Daniel and Armand made their way to the last bar on the street. Louis didn’t appear to be there, either. Daniel wandered through anyway, searching carefully among the soft, mortal faces made strange in the reddish glow of the bar.

Louis could blend in when he wanted to. When they met, it was in a place not unlike this one, and Louis had apparently taken pains to stand out. Daniel wondered about that, later. Sure, he had his little fantasies -- that Louis had sought him out, specifically, that Louis had been made an effort to catch his eye. (He’d certainly made an effort of some kind, with his suit and tie and yes -- a cape, and actual cape.)

Anyway, he’d seen him. And the rest is torturous, ongoing history.

Daniel laughed at himself. But wasn’t it true? _We’ll be in hell together after all_ , Armand had told him in a beautiful nighttime garden he’d created with his own fucking _mind_. And what did it matter when it had been hell all along, and becoming a vampire provided only a broader understanding of that truth. A new, and frankly quite exciting, iteration. And whatever Armand or Louis said, whatever they thought they believed, Daniel knew they understood this concept better than most.

Daniel finished his rounds. Louis was nowhere to be seen. He looked for a jukebox without any luck, before finally wandering over to Armand, who’d stationed himself in front of an archaic video game in the corner of the pub.

“Do you have any coins, Daniel?”  
Daniel could almost laugh. This is what you’re doing in your altered state? Sure, get all hopped up on hormones and play video games in a crowded bar; live out your dreams, boss. He dropped some change in Armand’s hand, feeling very strange.

“Good luck,” he said, turning to go, “I’m going to walk around a bit.”

“Why don’t you sit?”

“You don’t need an audience do you?”

Armand was absorbed in what was happening on the the screen, his face washed in the machine’s chilly, morguelike light; he looked at once very young and more like a corpse than he ever had.

“I’m just leaving for a few minutes,” Daniel finally managed to say, though he didn’t sound as annoyed as he’d have liked.

Armand had stepped back from the machine, but his eyes were still fixed on the screen: on a race car -- his car -- idling on the track. Daniel remembered the game: Pole Position ( _“It refers to the car on the inside lane, Daniel. I’m glad you find it amusing.”_ ). In a roar of sound, Armand’s car was overtaken by a blur of bright, pixelated shapes and left behind.

But Armand wasn’t looking anymore. He glided slowly up to Daniel, as if he might scare him off _now_ of all times. Yes, slither over here, darling; tell me all your evil little schemes.  

“Please,” Armand said, “come sit with me.”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to you,” Armand said, laying his head on Daniel’s chest, so that Daniel automatically clasped him around his middle.

“Are you trying to apologize for harpooning me with that needle, you bastard?”

“It’s fair this way,” Armand said. “Don’t you think so? Now we’re all in the same condition. But that’s not what your angry about,” he went on softly, before Daniel could say there was nothing fair about it, and what did Armand mean?; it wasn’t a competition. “Daniel. You should know by now that Louis …”

Daniel tensed, and Armand burrowed himself closer.

“He can’t help it,” Armand said.

“What the fuck are you--” Daniel unintentionally locked eyes with the bartender for a moment, and felt a dark little thrill ( _that’s right, there’s something strange about me; I’m dangerous; I’m not like you_ ) before he realized she was probably just wondering if they planned on ordering anything. He looked away. “I’m not angry.”

Armand had backed out of his arms and was watching him somberly. That weary, earnest expression broke Daniel’s heart a little. He reached out on impulse, taking a wayward lock of hair between his fingers. 

“Daniel …”

“Don’t,” Daniel said, bending to kiss that troubled face. “Don’t worry. I’m allowed to be in a bad mood, aren’t I? I’m just tired. Don’t look at me like that.” He pulled Armand a little closer. “I don’t like the music in here.”

Armand held him tightly. He pressed a kiss to Daniel’s jaw.

“Why is he -- ?” His mouth twisted. He wasn’t sure what he meant to say.

“Perhaps you expect too much,” Armand said after a long moment. “From yourself and … from us.”

Daniel shook his head, but said nothing. Someone should have some goddamn expectations around here. Then he said, because he’d just remembered: “I wish you’d stay out of his head.”

Armand had stepped back again. He was seeking out Daniel’s gaze, unsuccessfully. “He let me, Daniel. I can’t look unless he lets me.”

But Louis would let anyone do anything, Daniel wanted to say, even if this wasn’t expressly true. “I wish you wouldn’t,” he said.

“Alright.”

“If you’d been there, that’d be one thing.”  
  
“I understand.”

“Some things are still private, aren’t they? Even if we’re ... ”

“I’m sorry.” Armand said, leaning his forehead against Daniel’s collarbone, as if chastened. “It’s only habit. I won’t, when you’re alone with him.”

Daniel grumbled into his hair.

“Sit with me, my love.” Armand moved his arms up, draping them around Daniel’s neck, the way he knew Daniel found so endearing. It worked. Daniel felt himself softening. Armand nuzzled against his shoulder.

Daniel saw the curve of his ear poking out through his hair. It was so white, striking against the dark mass of curls. He touched it, letting his fingers drag along the lobe and down to his neck. Armand’s arms tightened.

And all of the sudden, he remembered, and wanted to know.

“Can you feel it?” Daniel asked.

“Yes,” Armand answered thoughtfully. “I think so.”  
  
“And?”  

“Hm.” Armand worried his bottom lip. “ … I don’t dislike it.”

“No?”

Armand looked at him. “No, Daniel.”

“It’s not so horrible, is it?”  
  
“No.” Armand rested his fingers on the strip of skin above Daniel’s waistband, under his shirt. “Please. Come here.”

Armand led them to a nearby booth and arranged them so that Daniel’s head was resting on his shoulder, Daniel’s long body taking up most of the seat. Armand stroked his arm, his hair. “Close your eyes, beauty. No one’s looking.”

Daniel did. Then he asked, because he wanted to hear Armand’s voice, “What’s this about Lestat building you rooms?”  
  
“A gesture. He thinks of himself as … inclusive.”

“I don’t want to go back there,” Daniel said quietly.  
  
“You don’t have to.”  
  
“But _you_ might, right?” He opened his eyes, shifting to look up at Armand’s profile. “Cyril said we were in danger.’

“There won’t be any danger if Lestat does what is necessary.”

Daniel didn’t say anything, letting that absurd statement hang in the air.

Armand sighed.

“But … murdering each other, you know, it’s frowned upon,” Daniel said.

“I would do it myself” -- _again_ , Daniel supplied -- “if  I could.”

A man came up intending to take over the abandoned game beside them. Armand told him it wasn’t working. The guy raised an eyebrow, but turned and left.  

“You know I understood what you said?” Daniel said from his position curled up against Armand’s side. “I’m finally learning French. I’ve understood almost everything people have said tonight.”

“Drinking from them helps.”

“Can’t we just pretend I’m learning something?”

“No.”

Daniel laughed.

“I only meant to say that I’m not sure we do learn; rather, that _I_ learn. You were older than I was, and -- different. Perhaps you can. But what you’ve done tonight is not ‘learning.’”

“I think you learn,” Daniel said quietly. He didn’t feel like having this argument again. He knew Armand’s stance; it had changed little since the 80s. To paraphrase: _I deal in the immediate with a cool intensity, but I don’t know shit about shit, Daniel._ In a falsely irritated voice he said, “And by the way, I’m not … artificial intelligence. Is that what you’re saying?”

“If you want to do something, if you want to make something, as you said, go back to writing, Daniel.” _Not this again._ “Perhaps it’s one form of expression -- of understanding -- that cannot be simulated.”

“You don’t believe that. You’re just trying to keep me occupied.”

“Yes, I am,” Armand said flatly.

“I’m just tired, how many times do I have to tell you?”

Daniel would have sat up, but Armand laid his cheek against Daniel’s head. “You may tell me again,” Armand said, finding Daniel’s hand with his own.

His touch was dry and cool. Daniel slumped back against him with a long-suffering sigh, moving their joined hands to Armand’s thigh.

“What’s wrong with this music, Daniel?” Armand asked in French, lips ghosting his temple.

Daniel had forgotten. “I don’t even know what this is. It’s fine.”

“Hm.” Armand stroked the back of Daniel’s hand.

Voices around them -- and yes, music of some kind … murmury, listless singing -- but it was all distant, and everything was pleasant here where Daniel rested in the dark with his head on Armand’s shoulder. “Armand ... ?”  
“What is it, love?” Armand answered slowly. Daniel wondered if his eyes were closed.

“If you have to go,” he said, “I’m going with you.”

Armand grunted softly against him. “Let’s not talk about that now.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to make that clear.”

Armand sighed, but squeezed his hand. “Yes, Daniel. Alright.”

“But let’s get back to the house while we can, huh?”

Armand sat up and looked at him through mussed hair. “Would you mind if I have a few more minutes with …” He meant the game, but he wouldn’t say _the game_. “You want to find Louis don’t you?”

“I don’t know if I should. You were right, I’m not in the best, uh --”

“He doesn’t need you to be. I think … he’s not avoiding you; he’s only preoccupied.”

“Feeding?”

“Talking.”

 

Daniel found him at a party. Well, a few blocks from the bar, he found Cyril moping about in front of a large, lit-up house and assumed correctly that he would find Louis inside.

Cyril took a drag from the cigarette he held in his stubby fingers, eyeing Daniel all the while. He couldn’t really inhale, Daniel knew -- and even if he could, it wouldn’t do anything; still, it looked convincing enough. Two women came out of the house and asked Cyril for a light, and Daniel strode innocently by with his hands in his pockets.

Just before stepping inside, he glimpsed his reflection in the glass panes of the door. He saw the long, white face with its messy fringe of ash-blonde hair, the lanky body, the slouching, careless walk. Not as youthful as Armand, not as delicately-made as Louis. Not angelic, not refined. But he looked alright; he looked different from them -- in a good way. Complementary. If only Armand hadn’t taken the liberty of shaving his face that night on the plane, he’d have been able to accentuate his differences just that much more.  

Louis was indeed talking to some guy -- having an argument, it looked like. Daniel took a seat on a nearby sofa and watched, his foul mood resurfacing as he realized he couldn’t think of the last time Louis had talked to him about anything at all, let alone with such vigor and excitement.

A cursory scan of the other man’s mind told Daniel he was taking pleasure solely in the conversation -- although onlookers were enjoying Louis’ soft, crisp voice and his flashing eyes and all that other shit that everybody liked -- _You’re not special, you dicks._ He wondered how Lestat dealt with it.

God, he didn’t need to be feeling bad for Lestat tonight, on top of everything else. Anyway, Lestat loved parading him around for all to admire (although Daniel had to wonder whether the incident in the library might have put a damper on things).

Speaking of, he’d always found it strange that the man who insisted they dress to their best advantage  in one another’s company wanted them in big sunglasses and gloves and hats -- wrapped up, perhaps, in elaborate silk scarves like Hollywood starlets -- everywhere else.

But maybe Lestat was right that they could stand to be a little more cautious.

Because Daniel had been wrong: Louis used to be able to blend in, and now ...

While those who’d gathered around were busy sneaking admiring glances at this striking, otherworldly stranger, they were also taking note of the disturbing pallor of his skin, the apparent luminosity of those spellbinding eyes, thinking, _something wrong -- unnatural --_ before shrugging it off as some sort of cosmetic modification, one that obviously suited him. (But one day they might see him with clear eyes. And what then?)

With Louis on display, Daniel could stay where he was, slumped on the couch in an attitude of do-not-talk-to-me (one that required no effort at all), and go relatively unnoticed. Still, he kept his own strange eyes carefully lowered, stealing glances along with the rest of them. He might have tried to listen in, but his own insecurity held him back; better not to know how unsuited he really was for such conversations. Anyway, Louis was on a Tolstoy kick, so it was easy enough to assume that they were discussing 19th century Russian farming techniques, or Levin and Kitty, or Levin and Stiva.

Levin and Stiva. Maybe it would have been better if Louis and Lestat could just have palled around for seventy years and gone bird-hunting and appreciated each other’s differences and kissed in a “just-friends” way.

A mortal Daniel going home to the opposite coast and just putting the Secret Gay World of Vampires out of his mind would have been more likely.

Never would’ve happened.

It was amazing, actually, that every humble brick and ostentatious cornice and fucking gilded fucking frame of that godforsaken townhouse hadn’t come crashing down under the weight of all that tension. You almost couldn’t blame Lestat for thinking, as he seemed to, that the ability to get a hard-on at the right time could have solved all their problems, instead of, simply, talking -- “really talking,” as Louis had desperately craved.

These days, Louis permitted touch, but not conversation. And that presented its own set of issues.

Everything had seemed so promising a few hours ago, with Louis moving beautifully between his thighs. They’d seemed capable of anything. Then everything had circled around on itself, as it always did, and he was here, watching Louis have a heated discussion in a language he could only tenuously ( _artificially_ ) understand with some guy he was growing more jealous of by minute. Daniel was no better than Lestat, when it came down to it. He was just that stupid, just that selfish.

Louis had hunted, Daniel could see that. He looked animated and brimming with conviction, his arms loosely crossed, his back straight, his hand coming up now and then to punctuate his words. As he listened to his opponent’s response, his eyes narrowed subtly and, for just a moment, a hard, calculating smile crossed his lips. Louis was going to decimate this man. Daniel would have been hopelessly turned on if he wasn’t still caught up in wondering when Louis had ever talked to _him_ with anything approaching that level of passion. Only once. And then, when they met again, Daniel had fucked him in a moment (a month) of weakness, and unknowingly sealed in the terms of their relationship.

Daniel blindly got to his feet and worked his way through the clusters of fragile mortal bodies, seeking an exit. Before he could escape, he noticed a secluded corner near a bookshelf and decided to wait there instead, unwilling to leave Louis’ orbit quite yet. He just needed a little distance. He just needed to calm down; otherwise, he’d have to feed again, and he had a pretty good idea whom he’d choose and he was certain his victim wouldn’t survive it.

It was no shock when Daniel felt Louis ghost up to him moments later. He hadn’t seemed to register Daniel’s presence earlier, but he must have known.

That coolly confident air in which he’d held himself only seconds before was gone -- that Louis was gone -- replaced by this silent, retiring imposter who didn’t dare intrude upon Daniel’s absorption with the flimsy volumes on the shelves even though Daniel had obviously come here for _him_.

Still, Louis smiled a little when Daniel turned to face him.

Daniel tried to speak as though his heart wasn’t already hammering. “I passed your friend outside.”

A shadow crossed Louis’ face, and he wished he hadn’t blurted out the first thing that popped into his head that wasn’t some embarrassing declaration. “He didn’t bother you, I hope.”

“No,” Daniel said. “He’s just dicking around out there …. Securing the perimeter, lighting ladies’ cigarettes.”

Louis nodded distractedly, seeming to study the photographs on the wall, and Daniel took a moment to appreciate what Louis was wearing: just a long-sleeved shirt of some kind and black jeans, well-worn and faded and looking buttery-soft to the touch. Probably salvaged from that trunk he’d mentioned earlier. He also wore -- and this was amazing -- a faintly sinister-looking bracelet of hammered silver that, on closer look, featured long, rectangular medallions embossed with a series of pyramid shapes and linked by ladders of fine, bonelike rods. Louis didn’t wear jewelry if left to his own devices, and certainly nothing that made such a statement. The only thing missing was, like, a matching belly-chain or something; there was a decidedly harem-esque quality to it. Like something that might have been dug up from the bottom of the sea at one point, perhaps.

He could inquire about that later. “What were you talking about?” Daniel asked as casually as possible.

Louis paused for just a moment before he said, “Nothing worth repeating.” Daniel was beginning to recognize all his subtle expressions. He could hear the French in his voice, too, more than he ever could before. Louis pressed his lips together now, looking vaguely irritated with himself. “Really -- nothing. What people talk about at things like this.”  

Daniel could ask him why he was at a party in the first place, or -- more to the point -- who he’d followed there, but that would sound too openly interrogatory. “You seemed interested.”

“It was … interesting only to me, perhaps. He was arguing for the sake of arguing, I think.”

“What were you arguing about, then?”

Louis looked down, into space. Not at Daniel. “Oh … Alice Munro. Grace Paley. Not about them, but--”

“The short story writers.” Shit. He knew this. He could talk about this.

“Yes. Not about them specifically, but whether writing about domestic life is important.”

“You mean, raising kids.”

“Yes. Being a parent. Especially a mother … Perhaps there aren’t many serious discussions of fatherhood.”

“Of course it’s important.”

“I think so, yes.” Louis said. He frowned.

The subject matter, and its significance to Louis, wasn’t lost on Daniel. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from surging recklessly ahead. “Have you read _Lost in the City_?” Louis shook his head. “Edward P. Jones? … There’s a great story about a father whose little girl keeps pigeons …” It was a tragic story, actually; maybe better not to mention that just now. “It’s really beautiful. You would like it. Honestly, you would love this guy’s writing, you really would.” Dial it the fuck back. Ask him a question -- ask him --

At some point, Louis’ posture had changed. He was leaning against the wall, perhaps to conceal the fact that he was leaning slightly into Daniel, which he was. He seemed as though he hadn’t noticed Daniel’s desperate flailing, his appalling lack of tact.

“I’ve read _The Known World_ ,” Louis said, his voice taking on a delicious resonance with their proximity, “but I didn’t know about his story collection. Do you have it?”

Daniel felt his cheeks heating under the beam of Louis’ undivided attention. There was nothing quite like it. His warm, solicitous tone. Those lovely eyes looking straight at him. It was something he’d never forgotten; the unique pleasure of it seared into his memory. He was so caught up he couldn’t even process the fact that Louis had read _that_ book, and was talking about it, and that Daniel should recognize this as something extraordinary and very likely painful in every way (but then, what on earth would he have said?).

“No, but --” _I’ll get it for you; anything you want_.

“I’ll find it, if you can remind me,” Louis was saying. Then he put his hand on his arm, quickly and lightly. “I have your Welty. I didn’t realize it was yours, and then I found your notes ... ”  
  
Daniel tried not to cringe, thinking about what he might have scribbled in the margins or hastily underlined thinking no one was ever going to look at it but him -- only for _Louis_ of all people --

“Did you like her?”

“Yes. I’m not sure how I hadn’t come across her work before. It’s -- thank you.” Louis had taken his hand away, but he smiled. “My taste has been limited in the past, I’m afraid.”

Daniel’s fingers were aching to touch him. He wanted to keep talking, yes, and he wanted to touch. His eyes kept straying to the thin shirt, to the shape of that familiar form pressing up against his clothes. He wanted to cup the birdlike curve of his ribcage and lean in for a kiss. Just something. Just a moment.

Louis had been casting careful glances at the people passing just next to them. When he looked back at Daniel, his eyes brightened perceptively, as if reacting to something in his face. And then Daniel’s fingers did lift to brush against Louis’ side. He didn’t even have to reach; Louis was so close.

“I like talking to you,” Daniel said.

Louis’ smile faltered. “I like talking to you, Daniel.” His eyes moved over Daniel’s face. “Is everything --”  
  
He brought his arms up around Louis, enclosing him completely. It was a gentle, loving thing, but he knew it was strange; he was acting strangely. “I’m sorry,” he said. He tightened his arms. “It’s good to see you.”

“Daniel.” He felt Louis relax in his grip. “Perhaps in private?” Louis had gone limp in the dream, too. Daniel released him. But Louis didn’t step away. He took Daniel’s hand, and led him outside.

 

Cyril was gone, perhaps waiting for them in the forest just beyond the shining curve of the river. His fellow smokers had disappeared, too.

They walked slowly for some time before Louis spoke.

He’d released Daniel’s hand once they were in the street, but now he took his arm. “I’m glad to see you, too, Daniel.” He looked so serious, gazing straight into Daniel’s eyes for a moment before turning back to the empty sidewalk in front of them. “I want to apologize. ”

Daniel winced. _Jesus. *Why?*_ He should be the one to apologize. For ambushing Louis just now, for that weird hug (and in public, too, when he had a good idea how Louis would feel about such displays).

“I know I behaved badly,” Louis was saying, “and … you’re upset. But what you saw--”

Daniel had the good sense not to interrupt, though he didn’t like where this was going, not at all.

“What you saw, while I slept, and later --” Louis shook his head in frustration. “--when we were  … When you drank from me … Please understand ... ” They’d stopped walking, and now stood facing each other in the darkened space between streetlights. “That I want these things. Even if sometimes I feel … strange about them, and I push too far ... it’s only --” His hand gripped the edges of the olive green work shirt Daniel wore to give the impression that he was someone who perhaps worked. “I liked what we did tonight … I don’t want you to think-- ”

“It’s alright,” Daniel said.

“I like it,” he murmured in the barest whisper, “I like for you to ...”

“It bothered you that I didn’t?” Daniel asked, matching his tone as best he could, struggling to wrap his mind around how truly, utterly filthy Louis could be in certain contexts compared to how he was in moments like this; how he could speak eloquently for paragraphs at a time and now had to force out these broken statements as if through a physical barrier. Daniel felt the contrast keenly, and it confused him as it always had.

“It’s only uncomfortable, for me. For a while longer, I’m afraid,” Louis finished with sincere regret, nearly tearing Daniel's heart out in the process.

Daniel leaned forward, so that their heads rested together, temples touching. “What can I do? Can I do anything?” _Other than--_

He looked questioningly at Daniel, as if to seek confirmation.  

“Anything,” Daniel said.

“Alright,” Louis said, his eyes steeling over, while his voice remained little more than a whisper. “Then … I do have a request.” He pulled back, but his hand was still on Daniel’s shirt; his fingers tightened a little, as if securing Daniel’s attention.  “I’d like you to avoid making assumptions about what you see in my mind … particularly regarding Lestat.” The color rose to his face, but he didn’t stop. “You saw things, you experienced them as I would, but you don’t ...”  
  
Daniel looked away, realizing -- as it seemed he’d never be done realizing -- just how stupid he’d been. He’d encountered sights and sensations and tangled knots of feeling -- but that was all; he didn’t _know_. Didn’t know what these things meant to Louis, couldn’t possibly glean from them any true understanding of his relationship with Lestat. “I won’t,” he said.

“I’ll try not to show you those things, of course. It’s -- I do appreciate your … understanding earlier. Second -- may we walk?” They resumed their slow progress toward the front-street bars. “Second, I would like -- if it would be alright --” Louis bowed his head. Daniel waited. They turned a corner and walked a little further. The tension was extraordinary. Yet Daniel tried to affect an air of placidity, tried not to cast desperate glances at Louis from the corner of his eye.

Finally, Louis spoke. “Perhaps, later,” he said, very quietly. Blood in the air; he was truly red now.

Interesting.

“Sure,” Daniel answered, threaded his fingers through Louis’ once more.

Louis looked at him, still serious. “Is there anything you wish from me, Daniel?” So considerate, so attentive. And yes, a little pink.

“I’d like to spend more time with you. More time like this -- you know, walking, and, just--”

“Of course,” Louis said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Daniel laughed. “But why don’t we? Why haven’t we before?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose -- I didn’t wish to presume ...”  
  
“I told you, I like … talking to you,” Daniel said.

Louis touched cool fingers to his face. He was looking at Daniel very closely, the way he had at the party, and Daniel felt his skin growing hot. “We can talk,” Louis said softly.

“It’s only fair, don’t you think?” Daniel joked, his voice shaking just slightly.

“Yes,” Louis said, letting his hair fall forward to hide his smile. “I suppose.”

They paused in the open doorway of the bar, looking in to see Armand still stationed in front of the machine in the very back. Daniel saw his dark eyes cut over. His hands slid from the controls and, walking straight-backed and without turning his head to either side, Armand came toward them with that eerie, inhuman grace Daniel would recognize anywhere. The crowd parted without seeming to notice him, this remarkable young man who managed to gaze at the world with a hushed sense of wonder while advancing all the while with the implacable focus of a nightmarish insect. 

Trapped in those eyes along with him, Louis made a small sound at his side. For a moment, Daniel thought he’d imagined it, this fearful little utterance. Except he snagged the retreating edge of emotion as it was yanked back inside the bounds of Louis’ consciousness: a trembly, almost sickly kind of feeling -- anticipatory, frightened, hopeful. Daniel could relate, he thought, before he remembered he should be resisting the urge to interpret these little glimmers from Louis’ mind.  

Out on the empty street, Armand studied them raptly, looking from one to the other. Daniel saw his gaze linger on Louis’ bracelet, which confirmed something to Daniel, even if Armand’s face was as expressionless as before. And anyway, he caught another jolt of feeling from Louis, and an odd stillness, as if just below the surface he was squirming in acute -- something.

“Well,” Daniel said, “did you punch out all the other cars, boss? Did you conquer space? Did everyone cheer and give you blowjobs?”

“Not as such,” Armand said, his inspection apparently concluded. They started walking toward the bridge. “Winning,” he said contemplatively, “is incidental to my goal.”  
  
Daniel laughed, incredulous. “Oh, yeah?” He skimmed his fingers along the small of Armand’s back, just to touch him. “What’s your goal, honeybee?”

Armand appeared to give this serious consideration. Daniel glanced at Louis, who walked beside him; Louis smiled just slightly -- a movement around the eyes. “Testing,” Armand said. “Thinking ... Just -- seeing.”

“You want to take it apart,” Daniel said. “You would if you could get away with it. You’d have parts scattered across the bar.”

“Not quite,” said Armand, with the flash of a smile. “No, I don’t think so.” He lapsed into a particularly heavy silence that meant he was thinking deeply and abstractly about what Daniel had said.  

They were on the bridge. Daniel was happy there, suspended in the center of the wide, black river with the two people he loved most in the world. Beside him, Louis caught his hand, the bracelet jingled, and Daniel felt a little answering wave of happiness from him.

Daniel bowed his head and walked along.

When they reached the other side, Armand, still deep in thought, said, “I like to see what happens when one operates outside the program’s understanding … of itself.” He looked at Daniel, eyes wide and inward-focused as he spoke. “It’s not about redefining meaning -- because, at the same time, the abandonment of former rules and codes makes it harder to control ...”

“Spoken like a true loser,” Daniel said, pulling Armand gently against him.

Louis had wandered a few steps away, toward the edge of the trees. At Daniel’s words, he turned, and seeing them, smiled so easily and unselfconsciously that Daniel felt Armand freeze in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for letting me share with you, once again, these fanfictions I can't seem to stop making. To be continued shortly. Or when I can.
> 
> Btw, I'm sorry if this chapter in particular reflects my extremely limited knowledge of France. I looked some stuff up, and I've watched quite a few French movies in my time. I've been *near* France. So.
> 
> Also ... I have a Tumblr now, on which I go by LeWhiskeySalad: https://lewhiskeysalad.tumblr.com/. (Despite everything I said before about how I'm trying to avoid the internet, it's not good for me, etc. Ha. So far it's been okay. We'll see.) Come say hi!


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